Archive for the ‘Europe & the United Kingdom’ Category

The United Kingdom is about to debut a new type of educational opportunity for those in the 14- to 19-year-old age category: the University Technical College (UTC).  This new technical school will focus on vocational education and work-based learning to train its graduates on the skills needed to become builders, engineers, and technicians.  Expected to open beginning next year, this new type of institution will differ from further education colleges that already offer vocational training to this age group, the UTCs will be sponsored by colleges and universities (rather than local schools) , will hold up to 800 students, and will have at least two specializations that are focused on the needed skills for the local economy.

Critics of the UTC system feel that age 14 is too young for people to determine whether they want to go into an academic stream (GCSEs) or vocational, with the worry that students from working-class backgrounds will be shuffled into the vocational stream, creating a two-tier education system: academic and vocational as second-rate.  Proponents of the UTC plan feel that students with an aptitude for the programs will self-select based on interest rather than inability to succeed elsewhere since there are so many other options for the age group.

Another are of concern about the new plan is that these are not higher education institutions and will not be offering tertiary-level studies, and while many of them will be sponsored by universities, many others will be affiliated with colleges instead.  This makes the term University Technical College very misleading.

For more details, check out the original article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/aug/10/university-technical-college

French elite schools known as grandes ecoles are being ordered by President Nicolas Sarkozy to reserve 30% of new admissions places for poor students, many of whom are immigrants.  The schools have refused to adhere to this new policy of taking in more low-income students on the basis that it would lead to an unavoidable drop in academic quality.  The broadening of admissions to these elite schools – which produce leaders in politics and industry – is seen by the government as equal opportunity but is seen by the schools as an admissions quota.   The Ministry met its prior goal of carving out 30% of places in entrance exam prep classes for poor students, and now the President wants to go a step further by having elite schools reserve nearly 1/3 of their first-year seats for low-income students on scholarship.

http://www.france24.com/en/20100106-french-elite-schools-under-fire

Albania’s Ministry of Education announced that higher educational institutions in the country will begin equating diploma programs in Albania with those being offered in Kosovo and Macedonia.  They will begin standardizing  curriculum to align with the Bologna Process.  Albania and Macedonia are two of the 46 signatory countries participating in the Bologna Process, which aims to provide consistency, transparency, mobility, and understanding of the educational systems and credentials of member countries.

http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/newsbriefs/setimes/newsbriefs/2009/11/30/nb-11

Germany joins the list of countries who have protested education in 2009.  Tens of thousands of students from all over the country have been demonstrating, protesting, and assembling around the clock.   Students are protesting new tuition fees now being charged at some universities as well as Germany’s implementation of Bologna-compliant degrees which follow a US model of Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral degrees.  There are also mentions of possible walkouts in France (whose students have been striking on and off this year about their country’s higher education reforms) and Austria as well.   Students are concerned about the Bologna degrees because they fear the new 3-year Bachelor/2-year Master structure will reduce their employment opportunities because employers will feel the bachelor degrees will be worthless.  German students will be entering higher education earlier since secondary education will now end after 12 years rather than 13, and they will complete their first level university degree in three years rather than five from the previous system.  In addition, students are concerned that the implementation of the new degree structure has not been handled well because reduced class sizes, improved teaching quality, and more financing to universities and needy students hasn’t been implemented yet.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4901195,00.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/world/europe/20germanedu.html?_r=2

Both the Czech Republic and Slovakia are dealing with diploma scandals at the moment.  The Czech Republic is facing the repercussions  of students supposedly buying diplomas and receiving degrees after a summer.  In addition, hundreds of thesis papers have gone missing from university archives at the University of West Bohemia.  Now Slovakia may be facing similar concerns about diplomas awarded after inadequate time periods as well as some questionable practices regarding the the dean of the University of Alexander Dubcek and his adult children who were supposedly students at that same university.   A national parliamentary investigation is currently under way, and it has already discovered mistakes at the university, but the extent is not yet known.  Specifically, the commission is examining the details for students who might have received special treatment or been awarded degrees that were not properly earned, issues that could cause the university to lose its ability to award degrees at all.

http://www.spectator.sk/articles/view/36971/2/are_express_diplomas_available_in_slovakia.html

Increasing numbers of European universities are moving towards a fee-based model and away from an all-free, all-the-time system.  In some cases, however, institutions are finding that the best structures are those that are supported by both the state and the students since both are served by the higher education sector.

Private universities in Poland have formally requested financial assistance from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, a move that has the support of the Polish students’ parliamentary association.  Not only has the idea not yet been rejected, but some claim that the government has reacted in a positive manner, seeing the need for a common goal amongst all universities, both public and private, to work towards educating its citizenry.  The government has gone so far as to create a work group – which includes the Finance Minister/adviser to the Prime Minister – that is specifically tasked to examine the financial aspects of higher education in order to identify the legal and financial ramifications for financially assisting private universities.

http://polskieradio.pl/thenews/business/artykul116384_state_to_fund_private_universities.html

Finnish higher education is about to experience a major update, which is detailed in the Higher Education Management and Policy article, “Brave New World: Higher Education Reform in Finland” available online for free via University World News.  The article discusses the Finnish university reforms recently passed by the government, which includes university mergers, the creation of a new (world class) university, independent legal status for universities to increase autonomy but also will lead to tuition for students for some programs, a history and overview of higher education in Finland, and more.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/filemgmt_data/files/Brave_New_World_Dobson_%26_Elander.pdf

Germany’s higher education system is reeling under a suspected bribery scandal involving potentially dozens of professors at 10 institutions throughout the country.  The investigation, which began last March with the seizure of documents in a raid, may continue for several more months as investigators try to uncover the linkages between  the (recently convicted) director of a newly bankrupt consulting firm and German university professors who are rumored to have accepted bribes for smoothing the process for PhD applicants, though there do not appear to be any irregularities on behalf of the students themselves.

For more information, see http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hw9M7TYtB9FgJr3eHXr3U_r18ktQD9AA0NCO3

University admissions in the UK is so fierce currently because there are over 135,000 students vying for about 22,000 seats.  Last year, nearly 30,000 fewer students applied for double the number of places.   Many universities are already full, and of those who still have open seats are seeing six times the number of applicants for the remaining openings.

The stagnant economy, record A-level grades, and a lack of financial support for universities have all contributed to a 10% increase in university applications during the reduction in student places.

Students who attended private schools earned more A grades on their Advanced Level Exams this year than those who attend state grammar or comprehensive schools or public colleges; in fact, over half the A Level grades for private school test-takers were graded A.  This marks the first time that more than 50% of the grades have been the top mark, creating worries that public schools are being left in the dust by private schools since, ultimately, students with better grades are more likely to get into the best universities.  Roughly 7% of students attend private schools; more than 50% of their A Level exams were graded A, and 90% were graded C or better.  In contrast, only 20% of comprehensive school attendees earned an A grade, and only 70% were graded C or better, while grammar school students were 40% and 85%, respectively.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/six-students-fighting-for-every-university-place-1774691.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/6061156/A-levels-education-gap-widening.html

The Ministry of Education has declared that the graduation diplomas of 100,000 students from Universitatea Spiru Haret (the largest  private university in Romania) are illegal because the Ministry revoked the university’s accredited status.  The revocation came after scandal broke when the ministry investigated claims of low attendance, poor quality, unauthorized programs, and “diploma making.”

Astoundingly, the university is continuing to recruit students even though their degrees would be illegal.

http://www.evz.ro/articole/detalii-articol/859244/Diplomas-of-private-university-grads-stamped-as-illegal/

http://www.evz.ro/articole/detalii-articol/859413/Private-university-snubs-diploma-cancelling-enrolling-students-/

The Washington Post had a great article this weekend about the internal feelings of French educators and their reactions to the changes that the administration is trying to make. Alas, we’ve been unable to find decent updates on the situation in French universities (namely with respect to students sitting their exams last month and this month), but this article is a different perspective and shows why there is so much unrest in the French educational sector right now – many see the changes as a way of undermining the core values of France since the Revolution, not as a way of making the country more globally competitive.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/10/AR2009071002766.html

British universities are seeing a massive upswell in possible applicants (through the Universities & Colleges Admissions Service) at a time when jobs are scarce and unemployment is running high, nearly a million 18-year-olds (the primary category of new admits), and hundreds of thousands of A level students will all be vying for a reduced number of available seats (cut by BIS).  The article does a good job of summarizing the situation and offering possible alternatives, such as the government taking out a loan to create and fund more university spaces to ensure that qualified students aren’t left out of the higher education arena.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jun/30/recession-university-places

The Department for Innovation, Universities, and Skills (DIUS) has been dissolved after just two short years. University and college oversight has now been lumped into the new Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills (BIS).  The article below gives a brief (though quite opinionated) summary of the former department and asks some good questions about the future of higher education review and financing.  For the time being, the BIS website continues to link to the Department for Children, Schools, and Families (DCSF) website for its lists of Recognized UK Degrees and degree awarding institutions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jun/16/mike-baker-dius

There’s been a lot of controversy about Bologna-compliant degrees within and without Europe.  There have been questions about adequacy of learning, comparability of pre- and post-Bologna degrees, and, most importantly for students, viability in the job market.

As a result, it’s quite refreshing to read a positive article about Bologna reforms in Germany. This article also gives a quick summation of the structure of German education in general to give the changes some perspective.  The article concludes by briefly discussing some upcoming changes to German education such as increasing research centers. There’s also a nice bit about the German mindset and how it relates to education.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2200

This spring has been problematic for French higher education, and we’ve been at a loss as to how (or if) to discuss it while it was ongoing.  Strikes, walk-outs, sit-ins, groups walking in circles, reading aloud flash-mob style, and other methods have been used to bring attention to what students and lecturers say is a crisis in French higher education. The longest-running university strike in French history has come to a stalemate as educators and students return to the classroom without making much headway with the government.

These protests have occurred for a multitude of reasons: planned job cuts, reforms to teacher training (including rolling teacher training into universities), planned changes to advancement & promotions, proposed reforms to the teaching/research hours, and other planned reforms by the French government.  French President Sarkozy wants to make French higher education more competitive by giving more authority to institutions for hiring, promoting, and quantifying employee work at an institutional level rather than at a national level and giving institutions the opportunity to seek outside funding. The government believes that their reforms will provide a better education for French university students while also increasing the value of their degrees and the rankings of French universities internationally, but protestors believe that students and the country will lose out if higher education is run like a business.

At one point, roughly half of all universities throughout the country were closed or partially closed by the strike. Teachers’ unions, students’ unions, and even administrative staff have banded together to blockade universities and classes in protest of the proposed changes. Entire universities have been closed for weeks. Some students have never even attended some of their classes. While some lecturers have been holding informal course discussions outside of the university system or providing reading lists, the majority of students in French universities have missed most of the semester.

However, even though the government has not agreed to back down, the strike’s organizers have agreed to temporarily stop the strikes.  Otherwise, the Ministry has threatened that students will not receive diplomas, university officials will be replaced, police willbe called in to remove protesters, and students will lose all chances to get credit for the semester. Some universities are offering students a few weeks’ worth of catch-up classes and delaying exams by a few weeks while other institutions appear to be expecting students to take their exams as scheduled without preparation or delay. The reality is that many students fear that they will have to repeat the entire year for failing their exams or that they will be unable to get jobs with degrees earned during this tumultous time.

Further reading:

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20090528175253979

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/feb/05/internationaleducationnews-france

http://www.france24.com/en/20090210-teachers-students-march-against-education-reforms-france-paris

http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/113/article_3823.asp

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=406749&c=1

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hFtcRI4dDS_LHScUtTh2W9ZyttYg

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/the-students-taking-on-sarkozy-1691530.html

A university in France has raised concerns about false degrees sold to hundreds of Chinese who were attending the institution primarily for French-language programs. The University du Sud Toulon-Var’s Institut d’administration des enterprises (IAE) states that, over a four-year time period, nearly 100% of its Chinese students received Masters degrees, mostly in entrepreneurship, compared to roughly 60% of its other students, even those of French nationality, despite the fact that many of the Chinese students didn’t have a functional level of French, and their actual pass rate was closer to 50%.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20090416201128535

Because there wasn’t enough going on with respect to British secondary credentials, there are also changes to the Advanced and Advanced Subsidiary Level grading.  I’m not sure how I missed this when I was doing my fiendish research for the wRAP-Up, but here it is now. A Levels have changed from a 6 unit structure to 4 units per subject, and the new levels will be awarded for the first time in Summer 2010.  New AS Levels are now worth 2 units rather than 3, and they will be awarded in summer 2009.  The new qualifications are expected to have more challenging questions, and the new, previously mentioned A* grade will be available in 2010 for grades of 90% or more.

More info can be found at http://www.ofqual.gov.uk/2235.aspx

There have been a lot of changes recently in the UK with respect to education, mostly related to secondary leaving credentials.

The Cambridge Pre-U is a new A Level alternative that received accreditation by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in early 2008. The two-year Pre-U is geared towards university entrance and currently offers 26 principal subjects. The Pre-U Diploma consists of three principal subjects as well as an independent research project and a global perspectives portfolio, but students can also choose to take stand-alone qualifications, either in addition to the Diploma or in conjunction with the IB. Its grading follows a three band, six grade scale: Distinction 1, 2, and 3 for the top tier; Merit 1, 2, 3 for the next tier; and Pass 1, 2, and 3 for the last grouping. D3 is currently estimated to be equivalent to A on A Levels, while D2 correlates to the new A Level grade of A*. The Pre-U was created because of a perceived grade inflation on the A Level exams students are passing 1 in 4 A Levels with a grade of A, and the number of students with 3 A grades has doubled in the last decade.

Speaking of A Levels, there has been much discussion about possible deteriorating quality of A Levels, so the government has taken several steps to address this issue. Since many teachers and higher educational institutions believe that the A Level exams have been dumbed down, Ofqual plans to publish the questions and answers from GCSEs and A Levels so that the public can gauge the quality and relevance of the questions. In addition, the decision has been made to make the A Level exams more difficult by requiring longer essay questions and more in-depth study of the modules.

As another way to address the concerns about lenient grading, teaching for the exam rather than for knowledge, overuse of A grades, inability of universities to differentiate between the masses of A students, and other worries, a new grade A* will be offered in 2010, though the oversight council recommends that universities wait a few years before requiring it to allow for wider participation and data collection and comparison. Some universities have already shunned the grade because they feel it will lead to an imbalance of students from independent schools, while other universities, such as Cambridge, have embraced the A* as a way of choosing the best candidates since they have been denying admissions to record numbers of straight-A students. In addition, the advent of the A* grade will replace the Advanced Extension Awards, introduced in 2002 to test students at the highest level and make it easier for universities to identify exceptional students, which will be phased out from 2009 to 2012.

To make things even more exciting, the government has also created yet another alternative to the A Level, the controversial Diploma. Like the others, it’s a two-year program, but it differs greatly in that it incorporates work training and academic studies. It features three levels: the Foundation Diploma (equivalent to 5 GCSEs at grades D to G), the Higher Diploma (7 GCEs at grades A* to C), and the Advanced Diploma (3.5 A Levels), and more offerings are on the way. There are currently ten subjects that will be offered by September 2009 with another 7 slated for 2011. In theory, students who earn a diploma can either continue school at the next Diploma level or take A Levels, go on to university, take an apprenticeship, or start a job with training in the field. However, there is a great deal of concern that universities are not going to accept the diploma and that students taking it with the intent of furthering their education will be wasting time and money. Other concerns have been raised that the Diplomas are too complicated yet fail to prepare students for universities, even if the universities were to accept them. In addition, only a quarter of the expected number of students began Diploma programs when they premiered in September 2008. The government believes that all diplomas will be available in all local areas by 2013, but an independent report in January 2009 determined that teachers and business lacked faith in the Diplomas for both university entrance and work experience.

And yet another change in British education: by 2015, students will have to remain in school, college, or on-the-job training, until they turn 18; currently, they are able to leave at 16.

The Telegraph included an article last week on a new grade letter (A*) for British A Levels.  The grade A* will be used for those who score in the 90th percentile on exams and will affect university admissions beginning around 2011 or 2012.  It appears to be very controversial, with some institutions saying it will dramatically affect their entrance admissions while others saying that it should be studied and tested before being emphasized. Read more at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5007125/Universities-split-over-new-A-grades.html