Into expands operations

Into University Partnerships has opened two new study centres in the UK, in partnership with Glasgow Caledonian University and the University of Manchester. The study centres will provide academic and EFL training to international students and those who successfully complete the course will gain automatic entry into the second year of a degree course with the partner universities.

Tim O’Brien, Managing Director of UK Operations at Into, explained that an important point of difference between Into’s academic preparation programmes when compared with other private providers such as Kaplan Aspect and Navitas is that the programmes are actually developed by the universities. “The university partners retain full quality assurance for the programmes and award the qualifications,” said O’Brien.

Both study centres are currently using existing facilities at the universities but Into plans to develop new facilities in the future. “It is important that the facilities offered to students are as well classed as the academic and English provision on offer,” said O’Brien. While current students at the study centre at Glasgow Caledonian University, called Into Scotland, can only go on to study at the university, O’Brien said Into is currently negotiating agreements with other universities in Scotland to provide pathways to a wider range of courses. Into Manchester provides academic preparation courses for students wanting to study at the University of Manchester as well as other universities in the UK.

Lynn McQuire, Head of the International Office at Glasgow Caledonian University, said that the partnership with Into gave them access to student markets where they were not traditionally strong. “We have tended to focus on countries such as Nigeria and India where English is not such an issue,” she said. “Into are very strong in countries such as China and Vietnam and our partnership with them means that we can accept more students of different nationalities and with different qualifications than in the past.”

Into currently has partnerships with five universities in the UK and has plans to create 25 such partnerships with universities in 10 countries by 2012. O’Brien said that they were currently in negotiations with universities both in the UK and overseas. “We want to be a catalyst for a global network of universities,” he commented. “Lots of international education companies focus on attracting international students to the UK but UK students need to operate in a global economy. We want to provide opportunities for UK students overseas and are currently negotiating with universities in Australia and parts of Asia to achieve this.”

Edu Pioneer Incorporated, a Korean company, has opened an English medium school in Korea and is receiving consultancy help from the Surrey School District in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

The school, called the Canada Public School in Mok-dong, Seoul ,will provide kindergarten curricula and after-school programmes for local elementary students. All programmes will be conducted in English.

A spokesperson from the Surrey School District told Education Travel Magazine that its business company offers educational consulting and recruitment services in Asia to various partners. “We are consultants on this project [in Mok-dong] and are assisting in recruiting teachers and offering advice on curriculum matters and Canadian teaching methodology,” said the spokesperson.

The school aims to recruit 320 children for its kindergarten programme and 480 for its elementary programme.

Students from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) studying at Sweden’s universities could soon have to pay tuition fees, according to Swedish Minister for Education, Lars Leijonborg.

The proposal will be officially introduced as a bill in November and if approved could see international students paying fees of up to US$13,000 per term from January 1, 2010. According to statistics from the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education, around 13,000 international students studied at a Swedish university last year – as individuals rather than part of a group – of which 8,000 were non-EEA.

Leijonborg commented, “Our primary argument is that it is unwise of a country not to benefit from a payment system which obviously exists. Why should these students pay money to American or British universities, but not to Swedish [ones]?”

The bill, which focuses on how university-level international exchanges can be increased and includes the new fee suggestion, will be debated by the Swedish government. Leijonborg also plans to introduce incentives to attract talented international students to study in Sweden through the introduction of scholarship schemes.

News in brief

UK university down under
University College London (UCL) in the UK is to open a campus in Adelaide, SA, Australia, making it the second UK university to establish a presence in Australia. Cranfield University set up its own Business Development Centre in Adelaide last year and like UCL was invited to establish a presence by the Premier of South Australia, Mike Rann, who wants the city to become an educational hub. The new UCL campus will be opened in 2009 and fully operational by 2010. Professor Michael Worton, UCL’s Vice-Provost, said, “Transnational education is changing the way that students and professionals study and develop their skills. Through our Adelaide campus, UCL will give a global lead on industry-focused research and teaching in a global context.”

University lectures podcast by iTunes
Students can now download free lectures as audio and video files from 10 universities worldwide. Universities in the UK, Ireland, the USA, Australia and New Zealand have all signed up to the system, which groups university materials in a free education area called iTunes U. As well as educational content, universities can also use the site to provide promotional materials on student life at the campus.

Koreans spend US$5 billion a year on study abroad
The Bank of Korea has published a report showing that Koreans spent US$5.1 billion on studying, training or practising a foreign language overseas last year. The figures show that 70 per cent of the spending on overseas studies went to the USA and Canada. Spending overseas for study purposes has been growing rapidly in recent years from US$957.9 million in 2000. Spending for the first quarter of 2008 was US$1.2 billion, down 3.4 per cent on the previous year.