Regional
News
AUSTRALIA
Online
Program Covers Aboriginal Group's Language, Culture
Northern Territory University in Darwin
has created a distance-education program to teach students one of the
world's oldest aboriginal languages. The program began this year, and
some 50 students are currently enrolled, the majority of whom are based
in Australia.
The university
is working with the Yolngu people to study their language and culture,
and also is using the latest technology to teach courses about the aboriginal
tribe, a people in northeastern Australia whose history on the continent
dates back 40,000 years. While the university has offered both undergraduate
and graduate degrees in Yolngu studies, this marks the first time that
an institution of higher education has offered the studies online. The
cost for the entire program is around US$1,740.
—
The
Chronicle of Higher Education
March 1, 2002
Dramatic
Surge in Visa Applications and Foreign Student Enrollment
More than 200,000 foreign fee-paying students are expected to enroll in
Australian institutions of higher education this year, with well over
100,000 studying on the continent itself.
In 2000,
universities enrolled 72,000 foreign students on their Australian campuses,
with about 25,000 more studying offshore. In the past decade, Australian
higher education enrollment has witnessed an increase of 230 percent.
While the spike has come from many countries across Europe and Africa,
the largest number of students is from China. That number alone has jumped
66 percent since the previous year.
Officials
say the recent surge can be attributed to the July 2001 amendments in
the country's visa policies.
—
Campus
Review
March 12, 2002
CHINA
Int'l
Education Expo Held in North China Province
Some 50 overseas schools of higher learning and educational organizations
attended the first China
International Education Expo, held between June 6-9 in Shijiazhuang,
capital of north China's Hebei Province.
These overseas
universities and educational organizations are from 18 countries and regions
including Britain, the United States, Russia, France, Germany and Japan.
Hebei's 75 universities, key secondary schools and foreign languages schools
have also signed up for the expo.
The event
was jointly sponsored by the State Overseas Study Fund Commission and
Hebei Province.
Participants
discussed the educational systems of different countries, development
trends in education, the role of international cooperation in higher education,
educational development in China since it joined the World Trade Organization,
international cooperation in the educational field and new openings for
exchanges.
—
Xinhua
News Agency
June 03, 2002
Vice
Premier Stumps for Improved Rural Education System
At a teleconference held April 26, Chinese Vice Premier Li Lanqing said
two shifts in responsibility are crucial for the improvement of the rural
compulsory education-management system - from farmers to government and
from township level to county level. To further improve the system, he
added, people need to focus on a few key points:
1. Establish
a stable and effective system to guarantee funds necessary for rural compulsory
education.
2. Create
a comprehensive monitoring system to ensure effective and legitimate use
of all funds.
3. Concentrate
on poverty-stricken areas to keep their development of the compulsory
education program abreast with everywhere else.
Li also stressed
that student-work programs need strengthening so students from financially
strapped families can complete their studies.
—
People's
Daily
April 27, 2002
NEPAL
Rebels
Torch Sanskrit College
Maoist rebels set fire to Mahendra
Sanskrit University Nepal's only Sanskrit-language university in May,
destroying administration buildings and damaging the college's valuable
collection of ancient texts. All student records, kept since the university
opened in 1986, were destroyed, as well as an unknown number of Sanskrit
books.
The rebels,
who are fighting to overthrow the country's constitutional monarchy, have
demanded the government stop teaching Sanskrit, the language of Nepal's
aristocracy. This demand has been among the rebels' priorities since their
rebellion began in 1996. The fire was the second attack on the campus
in six months.
— The Chronicle of Higher Education
May 31, 2002
PAKISTAN
Musharraf
Blocks Aid to 115 Islamic Schools for Alleged Links to Terrorism
Pakistan has blocked financial assistance to 115 Islamic schools because
of their alleged involvement in militancy, sectarian violence and terrorism,
a senior cleric said Monday.
``The government
will not release funds to those 115 madrassas whose students or
heads have been linked to militancy,'' said Mufti Abdul Qavi, a member
of the Pakistan Madrassa Education Board, authorized recently by
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to purge Islamic schools of extremism.
``How can we provide funds to those who are involved in militancy?''
Over the
next three years, the government will release $250 million to some 8,000
Islamic schools - known as madrassas - but those on the blacklist
will not get any money.
Heeding appeals
from pro-Taliban clerics, thousands of students at Islamic schools opposed
the decision, calling it a betrayal and demanding that coalition forces
in Pakistan be sent home.
—
Boston
Herald
June 3, 2002
PHILIPPINES
Educated
Filipinos Look Abroad for Better Life
Educated young professionals and their families continue to leave the
Philippines in large numbers. Despite promises from successive governments
for a stronger economy at home, the exodus began before the downfall of
dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and has not abated.
This mass
exodus is quickly eroding hopes of building a stable middle class and
restructuring the political system, which is still encrusted with the
oligarchs of the past. While all types of people flee - nurses, doctors,
and computer analysts among them - the most recent trend appears to be
young female graduates going to Japan.
Reluctant
to compromise the interests of the country's power elite, the successive
governments during the 1990s did not encourage foreign investment in important
industries, a practice that hindered job creation. Hence, increasing numbers
of Filipinos have left their homeland in search of greener pastures overseas.
The majority of them go to the Middle East, Australia, Japan or the United
States. Official government statistics show that 5 million Filipinos currently
live abroad, while economists put that number around 7.5 million.
Their remittances
- the money they send to friends and family - make up the nation's second-largest
source of foreign exchange, behind the nation's exportation of electronic
goods.
—
The New York Times
April 8, 2002
TAIWAN
Taipei
Launches Cyber-Academy for Civil Servants
The Taiwanese government has introduced a US$76.5 million, six-year, national-development
program that aims to turn Taiwan into a "digitalized state."
In early May, it launched the cornerstone of the program, a cyber-academy
designed to encourage civil servants to enroll in life-long learning courses.
"We
hope," said Lin Chia-cheng, chairman of the government's Research,
Development and Evaluation Commission, "that the inauguration of
the e-learning academy will help materialize the building of a digitalized
Taiwan."
The E-learning
Civil Servant Academy offers 10 courses to the nation's 600,000 civil
servants. "To respond to a fast-changing world, it's important to
provide civil servants — whoever they are and wherever they work
— with a new way of learning, so they'll remain abreast of the most
updated information," Lin said. The online academy was in development
for nine months.
According
to one official, 67 of Taiwan's 200 universities, or about 30 percent,
acknowledge the credentials of online programs (about 44 percent of the
3,000 universities in the United States offer online programs and acknowledge
their credentials). That same official suggested the government needed
to significantly raise this percentage if this "digitized Taiwan"
is to take shape.
—
http://www.taipeitimes.com
May 11, 2002
THAILAND
Thai
Government to Recruit More Foreign Students
The Ministry of Education
plans to spearhead a massive drive to attract more foreign students to
study in Thailand, and at the same time to try to prevent Thai students
from studying abroad.
Education
officials recently announced that a conference entitled "Studying
in the International System in Thailand -- Better than Studying Abroad"
was scheduled to take place near the end of June. It is hoped that the
conference will serve to promote Thailand's education system, encouraging
it to meet quality standards that would give it greater appeal both domestically
and internationally.
According
to the same officials, there is growing interest among students from Myanmar,
Nepal, China and Bhutan to study in Thailand. Furthermore, the government
hopes to instill Thai parents with greater confidence in Thai-based education,
making them think twice about sending their children abroad to study.
At present, the international education industry pulls in US$169 million
a year for Thailand, but more money leaves the country on account of Thai
students pursuing their studies abroad.
—
Xinhua News
Agency
June 3, 2002
Kingdom
to Recruit Retired English Teachers
Plans are underway to entice retired native English teachers to move to
Thailand and teach in state-run schools situated in touristic regions
where language skills are poor, according to education sources.
"We
will give them incentives", promised Prapatpong Senarit, head of
the Ministry of Education's
Curriculum and Instruction Development Department. "The Education
Ministry will help find cheap accommodation for them. They will be employed
for one semester or two."
The project
is expected to begin in 2003 and is aimed at raising the teaching standards
in tourism-dependent provinces like the southern island of Phuket and
Chiang Mai in the north.
While English
has been taught in Thailand for more than a century, nearly all of the
language teachers in primary schools lack the training to teach effectively,
said one official in the ministry . Embassies of English-speaking countries
might be asked to help entice retired teachers to join the project.
—
The News Mexico
March 24, 2002
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