CONTENTS

PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Explaining the Bologna Process to Non-Europeans

REGIONAL NEWS
Africa
Americas
Asia-Pacific
Europe
Middle East
Russia & CIS

FEATURE
The Bologna Process: As Seen From the Outside

BRAZIL

Promoting Equality in Education

The new minister for education Cristovam Buarque in a declaration to the World Education Forum recently outlined his commitment to ending social exclusion and creating a school system that “Brazil has owed to its children for the past 500 years.”

The newly elected Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva’s (Lula) government has inherited a country with nearly 20 million illiterates and a segmented, differentiated, unequal and exclusionary education system. In an interview he gave to the newspaper Folha Dirigida Mr. Buarque outlined the three aspects of his project: “First, set up a vast nation-wide program to abolish illiteracy within a period of four years; second, create a school system that corresponds to the needs of the twenty-first century; third, build a new Brazilian university that will be able to keep pace with the speed at which knowledge is generated and disseminated and that also reflects the ethical requirements in a world in which exclusion is rampant.”

Among the immediate courses of action adopted by the government, the following are noteworthy: gradually increase school scholarships (currently a monthly stipend per student just under US$5, up to a limit of US$15 per family); replace the university entrance examination (vetsibular) with progressive evaluation throughout secondary school education; expand public financing in order to assist students enrolled in private universities; provide university training to teachers who currently practice their profession without the required degree; raise the salaries of education workers; double the number of places in public universities through distance learning and cooperation with the Landless Workers’ Movement on education in rural areas.

— Hemispheric Secretariat on Education Newsletter
June 2003

CANADA

Alberta Adopts 4-Point Grading Scale

The four universities and five university colleges in Alberta have adopted a letter grading system with a four-point scale of numerical equivalents for calculating grade-point averages. Prior to Sept. 1, the institutions were using different scales: a 4-point scale, a 9-point scale and a percentage scale. The new common scale allows students to transfer without having their grades converted from one scale to another, making mobility within the province more convenient.

— University Alberta Media Advisory

CHILE

Voluntary Accreditation Available for Private Institutions

The National Council for the Accreditation of School Management (Consejo Nacional de Certificación de la Calidad de laGestión Escolar) was recently set up. This new body’s central task will be to develop and assess the standards and procedures of accreditation as well as to certify schools’ compliance with these criteria throughout the country. School assessment will rely on an external technical process and will provide the council with a basis for attributing a three-year “seal of quality” to institutions that guarantees a level of efficiency in management.

The council was established on the initiative of the Fundación Chile and is entirely autonomous of the Ministry of Education. One of the pioneers in the field of private quality control in Chile is the Colegio San Lorenzo de Rancagua, which contracted the services of the North American firm Unwriters Laboratories Inc. in order to acquire ISO 9001 quality certification.

In a country where there has been almost complete deregulation of the education industry and the state is a virtual spectator with the only organ of control, the Higher Education Council—giving complete autonomy to institutions once the initial period of accreditation is complete—must be seen as a positive, and will give parents some kind of benchmark when looking at the quality of private providers. The process is voluntary and costs institutions between US$700 and US$2,100.

— Hemispheric Secretariat on Education Newsletter
June 2003

MEXICO

Shortage of University Seats Leads to Unrest

Student unrest around the country in recent weeks reflects the growing frustration that Mexicans are experiencing over the government’s failure to meet the demand for higher education.

According to the rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico Juan Ramón de laFuente, the situation will reach fever pitch if the government does not create 800,000 more undergraduate spots. Such an increase would bring the total number of undergraduates at private and public universities in Mexico to 2.6 million. In 2001 at the National Autonomous University, 88,584 applicants competed for 33,000 spots. This year, 134,894 competed for the same number of seats. Other public universities face similar demand.

Mexico’s president, Vincente Fox, said in a speech last month that the government had opened 54 universities and technical colleges and had created 200,000 undergraduate spaces since December 2000. In addition, he said, the government has increased the higher education budget by 20 percent, to US$5.4 billion.

— The Chronicle of Higher Education
Sept. 12, 2003

University of the Incarnate Word Opens Campus in Mexico City

The University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) in San Antonio celebrated in August the opening of its second joint academic venture outside the United States. The Centro Internacional Universitario (CIU) was inaugurated Aug. 16 and marks the second international venture for UIW after the opening of China Incarnate Word in Guangzhou in 2000. The university is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

— San Antonio Business Journal
Aug. 5, 2003

Private Universities Closed

According to education officials, the Mexican government has shut down 88 private institutions of higher education over the past two years for failing to comply with basic education standards. The move comes in the light of mushrooming numbers of private institutions that have grown in number from 67 in 1975 to 1,368 today, according to government figures.

As highlighted by recent student demonstrations, public universities are not meeting the growing demand for higher education among middle-class Mexicans. Filling the gap has been the proliferation of private institutions, which now account for 56 percent of students. According to a report in Reforma, a Mexico City newspaper, many of these institutions lack even the most basic of facilities: engineering and science degrees offered at institutions without laboratories and classes taking place in professors’ houses or garages to cut costs.

— The Chronicle of Higher Education
May 29, 2003

UNITED STATES of AMERICA

Miami Dade Offers Bachelor's Degrees

Miami-Dade Community College, the nation’s largest educational institution, has changed its name to Miami-Dade College to reflect its new curriculum. Beginning this semester, the college will offer bachelor’s degrees.

Impact of New Visa Regulations and SEVIS Still Unclear

Many schools across the country are reporting a drop in the number of international students and delays in the processing of student visas, yet the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (BICE) maintains that the number of student visas issued so far this year is typical of recent years. What gives?

Enrollment in English-language courses across the nation this summer was reportedly down 30 percent from previous years, with declines especially sharp for students from the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia. UC Berkeley expects to lose 50 to 60 of its 522 graduate students this semester, and foreign-student enrollment at San Francisco State is flat after an average of 11 percent growth every year since 1994, officials said. International student advisors fear that the enrollment decline will be cumulative as students see the problems their friends are having with the United States and apply instead to schools in Canada and the United Kingdom, which are wooing students with more lenient visa policies. According to a spokesman for BICE, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, the number of student visas issued this year, 233,000, is typical of past years.

Most questions center on the performance of the Students and Exchange Visitor Information System–SEVIS–and on new face-to-face interviews for visa applicants at embassies around the world that, for many, can mean days of travel to capital cities for what, essentially, can be a lottery. More than 1 million students are now in the SEVIS database, representing about 7,000 schools across the country. But the work is only beginning. Updates on new arrivals, as well as changes of address, changes of courses taken and other details, must be reported via SEVIS within 30 days of the start of term. More than 600 schools — mostly small, private ones — are still awaiting government certification to use SEVIS, which takes 60 to 90 days to get. While they wait, foreign students who plan to attend those schools have been delayed at American ports of entry because they are not in the system.

Foreign students are not the only ones under the microscope. Since the 1980s, the number of educational institutions that have accepted at least one foreign student totals more than 77,000. That means about 70,000 are not yet part of SEVIS. The Department of Homeland Security is conducting site visits and has found that more than a few of those “schools” are actually post-office boxes. The most in-depth study of international student numbers, “Open Doors” (conducted by the Institute for International Education), will publish its 2003 findings in November. Many are expecting these numbers to reflect the real state of play for America’s student export market. The institute has recently opened a discussion forum on its Web site to provide an opportunity for the higher-education community to share their experiences and perspectives on the drops in foreign student enrollments on U.S. campuses.

— Nick Clark, Assistant Editor WENR

Proposed SEVIS Student User Fee Announced

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in October a proposed service fee that international students with F, M or J visa status would have to pay for their federally mandated inclusion in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS). Interested parties have until Dec. 26 to submit comments.

The rule would set the SEVIS user fee at $100 for international students. The fee is intended to defray the cost of administering the electronic tracking system. If the fee passes scrutiny early next year, it could be implemented before the summer 2004 semester. Failure to pay would be considered a violation of status. The fee is not expected to be made retroactive to include all students currently participating in the system.

— American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers
Oct. 27, 2003

Studies Portray Decline in Foreign Enrollments

The number of foreign students enrolling in U.S. institutions of higher education may be declining for the first time in decades, according to two studies released in early November. The annual Open Doors report by the Institute for International Education (IIE) shows foreign student enrollment grew only 0.6 percent in 2002-03, the first full academic year after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In contrast, enrollments grew a steady 5 percent for each of the previous five years. In addition, in a recent survey of 276 universities, most reported some decline in international enrollment this fall, suggesting that final student numbers may fall in the 2003-04 academic year for the first time since 1971.

The IIE report shows 586,000 foreign students were enrolled in U.S. colleges in 2002-03. The largest increase in applications came from India, China and South Korea, masking a decline in applications from Muslim countries following the overhaul of the U.S. visa application process. The number of students applying to study in the United States from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia fell 25 percent, while applications from India jumped 12 percent.

In a Nutshell

• India sends the most international students (74,603, up 12 percent), followed by China (64,757, up 2 percent), Korea (51,519, up 5 percent), Japan (45,960, down 2 percent) and Taiwan (28,017, down 3 percent).

• Asian students comprise 51 percent of all international enrollments, followed by students from Europe (13 percent), Latin America (12 percent), Africa (7 percent), the Middle East (6 percent), North America and Oceania (5 percent each).

• The University of Southern California is the most popular destination for overseas students (6,270 students), followed by New York University (5,454) and Columbia University (5,148).

• New York City has more international students than any other metropolitan area in the nation, with 36,086. The Los Angeles area hosts the second-highest number of foreign students (29,486), followed by Boston (24,160), Washington, D.C. (20,678) and Chicago (17,319).

• The most popular fields of study for international students in the United States are business and management (20 percent) and engineering (17 percent). After two years of impressive growth, the number of international students studying mathematics and computer science has decreased 6 percent, although these students still make up 12 percent of the total.

• International students contribute nearly $12 billion to the U.S. economy.

Details from the full report can be accessed from the IIE Web site.

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