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Nov./Dec.
2002
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Regional
News
BRAZIL
UNESCO Pact Boosts Diversity Program
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Times
Higher Education Supplement CANADANew Visa Laws for Foreign Students in Canada
The new legislation has been widely praised by language schools that believe it will open the doors to much increased business, and put Canada on a level playing field with competitor countries. —
Language
Travel Magazine Ontario
Colleges Given Degree Status for Some Applied Programs
Traditionally, Ontario colleges have awarded certificates or diplomas for one-, two- or three-year postsecondary and postgraduate programs. According to Howard Rundle, chairman of the Committee of Presidents of the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario, the ability to award bachelor's degrees recognizes marketplace need and the breadth and scope of training that colleges provide. Examples of applied fields where the Ontario colleges can award bachelor's degrees include business, computing technology and information sciences. —
Association
of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario press release Concordia University Bans Mid-East Activities
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators smashed windows and harassed people trying to attend the event. When the demonstrators entered the building, Montreal police officers were forced to use tear gas to disperse them. The university lifted its controversial three-month moratorium in November after an agreement on suitable principles for public expression, including commitments to mutual respect and nonviolent behavior, were reached. The university also said that it will not permit speech and materials that promote racism. —
The
Chronicle of Higher Education EL SALVADORPhony-Degree Scandal Puts Judiciary Under Scrutiny
Prosecutors claim there are law practitioners in the country who have never attended college or even graduated high school, but still somehow hold law degrees. However, the judicial purging has unleashed a host of critics who say the court is going after the wrong people. The dubious-degree crisis is a legacy of the civil war between the government and leftist guerrillas in the 1980s. The two main universities became very politicized during the war, and the military took over campuses on a number of occasions, forcing them to close classrooms for long periods. Increasing demand for less politicized and more stable university education, coupled with lax government regulation, resulted in an oversupply of schools. 'Between 1977 and 1995, 49 institutions of higher education opened, many of which had dismal academic standards. Law was one of the most commonly offered degrees, and a handful of newer universities took to selling degrees to people who never attended a class. Roberto Vidales,
special prosecutor for the investigation, said the great majority of judges
under investigation, however, finished most, if not all their coursework
at legitimate universities but were prevented from graduating because
of the war. Many transferred to questionable universities and completed
the coursework that university officials had told them they lacked to
graduate. Part of the current debate centers on whether these people were innocent victims or whether the fact that they transferred to universities notorious for selling degrees denotes a level of guilt. The Supreme Court has decided not to differentiate between shades of fraud. —
Washington
Post
UNITED STATESReport: India Tops Student Exports to the U.S.
Overall, the number of international students attending colleges and universities in the United States increased 6.4 percent. The previous year also saw 6.4 percent growth, the largest increase in 20 years. The number of foreign students on U.S. soil was a record high of 582,996, and continued the trend of substantial growth in foreign student enrollments that began in 1997, after a four-year period of minimal growth. India's 66,836 students now represent 12 percent of the total number of international students in the United States, topping China's 63,211 students. The Republic of Korea was the third-leading sender, increasing 7 percent to 49,046 students. Japan, which had been the leading sending country from 1995-96 to 1998-99, when it was surpassed by China, showed a slim increase of just 0.7 percent (with 46,810) and slipped to fourth place. The data was collected in October-November 2001, suggesting that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks did not cause too many students to return home as a result. However, the numbers do not reflect the current visa problems that many foreign students are now experiencing. Other highlights of the study show that New York University was surpassed by the University of Southern California as the No. 1 receiving institution, which complements California's rating as the No. 1 host state. New York City, however, had more international students (35,737) than any other metropolitan area, with 7,000 more than Los Angeles. Foreign students, representing 4 percent of the U.S. student body, contributed nearly $12 billion to the U.S. economy in money spent on tuition, living expenses and related costs. The Department of Commerce describes U.S. higher education as the country's fifth-largest service sector export. Exchange the other way also increased impressively, with 154,168 U.S. college students receiving credit for study abroad, an increase of 7.4 percent over the previous year. More information can be found HERE. —
Institute
for International Exchange OAS, Spanish University to Cooperate
The school will offer courses in social development, tourism and sustainable development, access to markets, scientific development, the exchange and transfer of technology and trade liberalization. —
The
News MIT Launches 2 Groundbreaking Internet Resources
Almost 40 MIT courses in 16 academic departments and the Sloan School of Management are now available online. The hope is that OCW will advance technology-enhanced education at MIT, and will serve as a model for university dissemination of knowledge in the Internet age. Following swiftly on the heels of the OCW initiative, MIT launched a "super-archive" Nov. 4 that makes research from all its academics freely available. Dspace, as the digital repository is known, allows all MIT academics to pool their findings and share everything, from their articles, technical reports, conference papers, data sets and databases to media clips, visual aids and simulations used in class. The university hopes the initiative will spark a more free and international exchange of academic ideas. MIT and Hewlett Packard, which co-designed the program, will offer and encourage the adoption of Dspace at other research-intensive institutions. —
MIT
news Falsified Transcripts Concern UCLA
Campus administrators said the investigation will apply to 11 programs in the biomedical and life-sciences field. In the past, UCLA and many other U.S. universities did not verify transcripts, so the recent announcement makes UCLA one of the first universities in the nation to acknowledge it is taking such steps. Penn State University recently announced that it has undertaken similar reviews of foreign credentials from students wishing to apply to its graduate school. David Meyer, director of UCLA Access, an umbrella organization for doctoral students applying to its graduate programs, said the tougher scrutiny will apply to all foreign students in the 11 departments, but that applicants from China are raising most concern. He said there seems to be widespread practice there of students putting together transcripts and mailing the documents themselves, rather than having the universities send the paperwork. UCLA Access will try to establish closer ties with the four universities where most of its Chinese graduate students come from: Fudan, Qinghua, Beijing and the University of Science and Technology of China. UCLA plans to send some of its faculty to meet with officials at the four schools in an attempt to establish verification procedures. Meyer said other graduate programs at UCLA have not adopted similar measures, but all have been advised to take extra caution. The UCLA controversy comes amid rising concerns about possible cheating by foreign students on entrance exams. The Educational Testing Service recently alerted U.S. campuses that scores on the GRE from China, South Korea and Taiwan may have been affected by cheating. —
Los
Angeles Times Fraudulent Applicants Look for 'Easy Mark' Universities
In an article entitled, "Why Verification of Suspicious Records is Important," Devlin wrote: "The reputation of an institution as an 'easy mark' for questionable application documents is a hard one to repair. Once this reputation is public, good students will stay away. Weak ones will apply, fraudulently or not." In countries with high numbers of fraudulent applicants, there are a number of institutions in North America that are considered easy marks, according to Devlin. Many of these institutions are working with unscrupulous agents, who will do whatever necessary to secure an admission for their student clients. Visa officers in embassies and high commissions in those countries are more and more aware of which institutions are admitting students with bogus credentials. Institutions that are finding that many of their students are being rejected for visas should be asking if they have become easy marks, Devlin said. —
American
Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers January Doubts Confirmed, INS Extends SEVIS Database Entry Deadline to August
Jan. 30, 2003, is only the deadline by which institutions that enroll foreign students must sign up for the system. Institutions that fail to comply will lose authorization from the INS to accept international students. As of Sept. 11, 2002, no F, M or J visas may be issued by the State Department without electronic evidence of admission from the institution sponsoring the international student. Institutions must enter basic biographic information about the international student into the State Department's new Interim Student and Exchange Authentication System (ISEAS). The ISEAS system will remain in place until SEVIS is fully implemented. Under the new regulations, colleges must now report if their international students acquire practical training related to their fields of study. The institutions must record any work experience that international students undertake while they are studying, and for up to 12 months after they graduate. The INS regulations cover students carrying F visas, for academic students, and M visas, for vocational students. The State Department also issues J visas, mostly for professors, scholars, and students visiting on exchange programs. The State Department has not yet released regulations for J-visa holders. —
College
Bound University of Phoenix Doctoral Programs Approved
The new programs will be offered through the university's online campus, and to support these offerings, the university has established the School of Advanced Studies. —
The
Business Journal Phoenix Bill Would Allow Border Students to Study in the U.S. Part Time
The legislation would create two new visa classifications for part-time, daily commuter students from border towns in Mexico and Canada. The legislation passed the House Oct. 15, 2002 and the Senate a day later. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Immigration and Naturalization Service initially vowed to outlaw foreign part-time commuter students from attending school in the United States, but then issued a ruling in August allowing commuter study on an interim basis. Currently,
Mexican and Canadian college students are allowed to attend school in
the United States with only F-1 or M-1 visas. The new bill would create
an F-3 category for part-time students and an M-3 category for vocational
coursework. Such students would be subject to the INS online student-tracking
system.
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An agreement signed by UNESCO and the Brazilian Education Ministry will
secure funds of US$9 million to raise undergraduate standards by running
pre-university courses in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Bahia.
The project is part of the Diversity at University program, which was
launched in September 2002 by the Education Ministry. Funding will come
from the Inter-American Development Bank (US$5 million) and the Brazilian
government (US$4 million). 