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Volume 12, Issue 4   REGIONAL
NEWS
PRACTICAL
INFORMATION RESEARCH
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Regional News
Australian Education International (AEI) recently announced the deal to all institutions on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students. These institutions will now benefit from ATC marketing.
The decision has been greeted with mixed feelings among higher-education professionals. Some see education and tourism as two aspects of the same market aimed at middle-class consumers. Others feel education is something entirely different from tourism and should be marketed separately.
Under the agreement, ATC marketing will serve as the platform for the AEI campaign: Study in Australia 2000. Advertisements will allow institutions to include the Brand Australia logo along with their own images.
— Campus News
In general, they provide information on studying abroad, apply to foreign colleges and universities on behalf of students and offer training programs for students before they leave.
But Wei Yu, a vice-minister of education, disclosed recently that some of these agencies deceive students through false advertising and are operating illegally.
There have been several cases where students paid agencies for services that were never rendered. Often the students could not find the fake agents to reclaim their money.
Other students who entered the countries where they intended to study were expelled because the visas the unauthorized service agencies had prepared for them at home were counterfeit.
The new law requires all intermediate service agencies to be authorized educational institutions. They must have experience in dealing with student exchange and cooperating with foreign institutions of higher education.
Before providing services to students, these agencies must first get approval from local educational administrations and the Ministry of Education. In addition, they must meet certain standards set by the Ministry of Public Security.
— China Daily
The program is conducted each year through the university’s foreign languages department and caters primarily to students and lawyers who need to become proficient in English legal terminology.
This is not a law degree but an English language program for Chinese lawyers. The program takes one year to complete and is divided into two terms consisting of the following courses:
First term: extensive reading of English; fast reading of English; focus listening of English; western holidays with associated customs and culture; contract I; property and common law.
Second term: intensive reading of English: writing of English; oral English; American society and culture; contract II; business enterprises.
— Correspondence from China University of Political Science and Law
Admission requirements are as follows: a master’s degree in any of the related social sciences or sciences, including math and statistics or a diploma in population studies from IIPS.
The program has a duration of two years, but because it is offered through distance learning, students can take up to four years to complete the necessary requirements.
— University News
In January 2000, the Indira Gandhi National Open University will launch a new master’s program in tourism studies. The objective of the program is to train qualified personnel for the country’s growing tourism industry, with special emphasis on job requirements.
Approximately 130 study centers across the country will be open to students participating in this program.
— University News
Authorities said at the time that the universities were closed because they were operating illegally and did not meet national standards for higher education.
However, the closures caused widespread protest among the more than 1.5 million Afghans living in Pakistan, forcing the government to open a new university for refugees.
This means that Afghan women, who are prohibited from attending universities in their home country, will have a chance for higher education in Peshawar.
The university’s chancellor is Sibghatullah Mojaddidi, a former Afghan rebel leader and Islamic scholar. According to a university spokesman, the Taliban government in Afghanistan has applauded the opening of the new university and recently sent a letter of congratulations.
— BBC News online
Since the government introduced economic reforms more than 10 years ago, Vietnam has been slowly moving towards a free-market system. The many internal structural transformations and changes in diplomatic relations have largely reduced the existing Soviet educational model to an anachronism.
To help universities better adjust to a market-economy transition, the government implemented a new education law last June. The law gives institutions greater autonomy over their academic, administrative and financial affairs, while effectively decreasing the Ministry of Education’s authority to interfere in university activities.
The Ministry of Education organized a workshop in Hanoi with the cooperation of UNESCO’s Principle Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (PROAP) in preparation of the law. Educators and administrators in attendance decided the ministry should be responsible for developing an accreditation system based on foreign models.
However, the workshop recommended that universities be allowed to determine the content of the curriculum and that they should have more autonomy in awarding academic qualifications. Finally, it was suggested that schools be given more control over the allocation and management of expenditures.
The UNESCO-PROAP plans to sponsor another workshop next year.
— Times Higher Education Supplement
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In a recent move aimed at increasing foreign enrollment at colleges and universities, the Australian Tourist Commission (ATC) has agreed to allow institutions to market courses and programs overseas using its Brand Australia logo — a kangaroo against a sun.