In September last year, a consortium of education export agencies in Europe was awarded a e2.4 million (US$2.8 million) service contract by the European Commission to host seven European higher education fairs between 2006 and 2008. The education associations, Edufrance, DAAD from Germany, Nuffic from Holland and the British Council, will host the fairs in China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam in order to promote education opportunities available in Europe to Asian students.
Meanwhile, Edufrance and DAAD have recently made it easier for potential international students to search online for education opportunities. Collaboration between EduFrance, the National Office for Information on Education and Careers and the University of Paris 10 has led to the launch of an online catalogue of the 22,000 programmes in the French higher education system, available through EduFrance. DAAD has also updated its online search facility to list programmes for international students funded by non-DAAD organisations.
Students from outside the European Union (EU) wanting to study in parts of the Netherlands or France should also find the application process easier after recent regulation changes. International students heading to The Hague, Leiden or Delft can now get their residence permit – required by non-EU students for stays of over three months – in a few weeks rather than a few months, due to an initiative introduced by the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND).
A representative from the IND visits these cities and processes the students’ dossiers on site. Piet-Hein van der Ploeg from The Hague University of Professional Education said, “We were able to deal with 150 student dossiers in one day, while normally we would refer only 20 students a week to the IND.” The initiative should soon be extended to other cities.
In France, a bill adopted by the government in February will give non-EU students priority when applying for a visa to study in critical business areas. Foreign students completing a master’s degree in France will also be automatically given a work permit if they find a job within six months of completing their course. French Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said that France was losing out to other countries in terms of attracting highly skilled migrants. “Neither France, not its European partners, can be satisfied with a situation where the elites from developing countries head [en masse] to the USA or Canada,” he said.
UK delegation in India
The Chancellor of Oxford University in the UK and former governor of Hong Kong, Lord Patten, visited India in March in a bid to encourage the brightest Indian students to study in the UK instead of the USA. Currently, 17,000 Indian students study in the UK each year, compared with 80,000 in the USA.
Patten visited Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi, calling on Oxford alumni and discussing how more money could be raised for bursaries for Indian students. “We have to fight very hard to keep our position in the world league table to stay up there with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT,” Patten told the Financial Times. “One of the problems in India is that we have a rather conservative, stuffy image. People don’t realise the flexibility and modernity of our courses.”
Oxford University currently has twice as many Chinese as Indian students, although countrywide decreases in the number of Chinese enrolments has been noted. Figures published by Ucas last year revealed that the number of Chinese applications for this academic year was down by 22.8 per cent. India on the other hand has been noted as an emerging market.
South Australia launches TV promotion in Asia
A television campaign to encourage students from Vietnam and China to study in South Australian schools and universities has been launched as part of a wider strategic plan to double the state’s share of the national overseas student market by 2013.
The AUS$1 million (US$700,000) television campaign is being funded by the state government, Adelaide City Council, the state’s universities and other education bodies and will run for 12 months. Education Adelaide, a government marketing body, has identified seven key advantages offered by Adelaide for international students, including having the most rigorous accredited homestay programme in Australia, being the only city in Australia to offer US degrees, and having the highest vocational training pass and employment rates in Australia. Adelaide is also the only mainland city in Australia where overseas students get five bonus migration points towards their immigration applications.
Campaign Co-ordinator, Denise von Wald, said, “South Australia’s international student numbers have been growing at twice the national average for more than three years and we are absolutely determined to maintain this momentum.”
US university group backs out of plan to work with agents
The North Dakota University System (NDUS) in the USA, made up of 11 public colleges and universities, has shelved plans for a US$1.5 million international student recruitment programme in order to free up much needed funds to fix an increasingly expensive software system.
The International Student Recruitment and Retention Program, which would have involved forming contracts with agents in other countries to recruit prospective undergraduate students, was approved by 10 out of the 11 university presidents in November last year. NDUS Chancellor, Robert Potts, introduced the initiative in 2004 at the beginning of his tenure in an attempt to address the expected 30 per cent decline in local high school graduates in North Dakota in the next 15 years. Potts said of the scheme, “This will help fill up those empty spaces we’re going to have in the next few years. This is not an exchange programme, this is an importation of much larger international students numbers.”
Potts also noted that North Dakota attracted fewer international students than other universities elsewhere in the country. At the time, North Dakota was home to just 1,500 international students with 500 of them from Canada.
The proposal would have created a new division within the university system, headed by a newly created vice chancellor position with a five person support staff, as well as an accredited English language training centre within one of the university campuses.
However, NDUS members voted unanimously in February to rescind the initiative in order to be able to fund the costs of ConnectND, a project to connect the campuses and state agencies with the same administrative software. John Pederson, Faculty Adviser to the board of the Council of College Faculties, said, “This action will help us count the students we don’t have.”
US hotel school opens in Singapore
The USA’s biggest hotel college, William F Harrah College of Hotel Administration, has announced plans to open its first international campus in Singapore in order to meet the needs of Asia’s booming travel industry. The Singapore campus of the college, part of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, is due to open in September with 50 to 100 enrolled students.
Earlier this year, Singapore’s Transportation Minister Yeo Cheow Tong, told an international aviation summit that 870 million passengers are expected to be travelling to, within or from the Asia Pacific region in eight years time, more than double the number in 1999.
Association corner
Full name: Education Adelaide
Year established: 1998
Organisation’s main role: We are charged with promoting Adelaide as Australia’s permier learning city for overseas students. We are funded by the South Australian Government, Adelaide City Council and our institutional membership base.
Full contact details: Education Adelaide
Level 5, 144 North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia
Tel: +61 882163404
Fax: +61 884102480
Email: studyadelaide@studyadelaide.com
Web: www.studyadelaide.com
What activities have you been involved in recently?
We have supported the State Government’s campaign to attract Carnegie Mellon University to Adelaide. It’s Australia’s first foreign university and the only one in the nation to offer both Australian and US degrees. Education Adelaide’s Chair Paula Nagel was also appointed to the State Government’s Economic Development Board, highlighting the importance of education as the state’s eighth biggest export earner. We also took part in high-level government missions to India, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore to raise Adelaide’s profile in these markets, and funded major media visist by education media from China and India.
How have enrolments fared over the last 12 months?
Adelaide’s overseas student numbers have grown at twice the national average for the past three years, with more than 17,900 international students choosing to come to South Australia in 2005.
What plans do you have for the future?
We recently launched a global print and television advertising campaign, which will run initially in China and Vietnam (see left). We will also take part in overseas education trade shows and work directly with education agents in key markets. We will bring an increasing number of journalists to Adelaide to familiarise them with our education facilities, and enhance our student activities programme to ensure that students who choose SA feel part of the community.
News in brief
Southampton University voted number-one
The International Student Barometer (ISB), a new survey tracking international student satisfaction rates throughout the year at participating universities, has ranked Southampton University in the UK as number-one university for international students.
The university received the top satisfaction scores for 13 categories, including lecturer expertise, teaching, academic content, research, academic support, careers guidance, flexible study, sports facilities, Internet access, financial support, finance department and graduate school.
Wellington loses students
A report by Education Wellington International in New Zealand has shown that a 20 per cent drop in international student numbers in the city has resulted in a decrease of NZ$50 million (US$32.2 million) to the local economy. In total, 5,475 international students studied in the Greater Wellington area in 2005, compared with 6,854 the year before and it is estimated that they contributed NZ$145 million (US$93.3 million) to the local economy.
Combined marketing in Iowa, USA
A group of representatives from seven post-secondary institutions in Iowa, USA, visited Colombia earlier this year to promote education opportunities for South American students in the state. The group, all members of Promoting Iowa Education Internationally – a non-profit organisation dedicated to increasing Iowa’s profile overseas – hosted a university fair in Bogota in February. A representative from the US Consulate Office was also on hand to discuss visa issues.
New scholarship directory from IIE
The Institute of International Education (IIE) has developed an online directory that will provide students with detailed information on hundreds of scholarships, grants and fellowships available for undergraduate and graduate study in the USA, well as doctoral and postgraduate research outside the USA.
The website, www.studyabroadfunding.org, was due to launch in April this year and institutions can update their scholarship and grant information for free.
Scholar Ship launch
The world’s first study-at-sea programme has been launched by a consortium of six international universities from Australia, China, Morocco, Mexico and Ghana. The Scholar Ship is a semester-long academic programme taking place on board a specially equipped cruise ship. It will bring together 700 undergraduate and postgraduate international students and is due to visit eight countries on five continents over 16 weeks during its inaugural voyage in January 2007.
DAAD’s alternative World Cup
The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is hosting an alternative version of the football World Cup for international students in Germany this year. The event is due to be held at the end of April and will consist of 16 student football teams competing against each other in Cologne. The selection process for teams was via an internal soccer expert commission and the motivation behind organising the event was to create a special forum for exchange and encounter.
Younger Korean students study overseas
More and more young children in Korea are being sent overseas alone to study, according to a recent report in the Korea Times. It revealed that the number of school age students travelling abroad to study increased from 1,562 in 1998 to 16,446 in 2004.
Of these, the number of elementary students studying overseas increased from 212 to 6,276 in 2004.
|
