Letter from London
Search for common entrance exam
One of the concerns frequently voiced by universities is how they can ensure they select the best students from among the many who achieve the highest A-level results. With everyone agreeing that the present system of predicted A level results is unsatisfactory, a massive effort to devise a single national university entrance exam has been undertaken. Two agencies, the University of Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate (UCLES) and the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) have been working on a pilot project to test ‘thinking skills’ rather than specific knowledge, which they are now ready to sell to universities. If they succeed they could hit the jackpot. Industry experts estimate that their sales revenue could top £7.5 million (Rs. 63 crore) a year in fees if the exam is written by every university applicant.
The Academic Reasoning and Thinking Skills Test (Arts) is being advanced by UCLES as a single generic test designed for all potential university candidates to write, a move recommended by Prof. Steven Schwartz in his government-backed review of the admissions system last year as an alternative to candidates writing numerous tests for different courses. The proposal is that all candidates will take the test while still in school and be assessed on the basis of their ‘academic reasoning’ abilities. There are three components of Arts: quantitative and formal reasoning with a scientific slant; critical reasoning, and verbal and plausible reasoning. Although pupils will answer questions relating to all three components, those in charge of admissions would be free to accord greater weightage to answers pertaining to the skills required for the study programme applied for.
Arts which is to be piloted this September using 1,500 students across the country as test cases, will consist of 96 multiple-choice questions covering all three parts of the exam. Selected pupils will write Arts together with their A levels. The students’ results will be compared with their performance in their first year university examinations, to assess whether it is a better predictive tool for performance than actual A level results. If successful the exam could be available nationally together with A levels by 2008. But only if top universities favour the proposal.
The Arts test does have a rival — the American Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) currently being promoted by the Sutton Trust charity. SAT has been established for more than 70 years and is written by nearly two million students in the US every year as well as by more than 300,000 candidates in other countries. Comments Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust: “We’re hugely supportive of any kind of aptitude test. We welcome the development of this test, but we believe the SAT is a preferable model for the UK as it is tried and tested and will not take so long to test and calibrate.”
However, Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge University has his doubts. “It doesn’t seem plausible that a single common aptitude test can examine students in theoretical physics through to classics and modern languages,” he says.
It will be interesting to see whether schools, who are already overly aware of their position in the league tables, will add the results of this proposed new test as a further measure of their success. If so in the short term students taking A levels will be under yet greater pressure to achieve high results in Arts as well as in their A level exams.
(Jacqueline Thomas is a London-based journalist/ academic)
China
Revisionist history debate
Protesters in China and South Korea angry at Japan’s so-called “white-washing” of its wartime history are ignoring similar behaviour in their own countries, say critics. The recent anti-Japanese protests were sparked by the approval of a school history textbook that allegedly glosses over atrocities such as the ‘Rape of Nanjing’ and the mass enslavement of ‘comfort women’ during the Sino-Japanese War. However, Chinese schools teach significantly edited versions of history to their own pupils, portraying their country as a victimised nation and glorifying the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party.
Says Su Zhiliang, professor of history at Shanghai Normal University: “Textbooks represent the will of the authorities.” China’s textbooks depict heroic patriots battling against a variety of foreign invaders, not least those fighting against Japan during the Second World War. Since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, the government has consistently claimed that it was the Communists who secured victory against the Japanese invaders. This ignores the fact that the war of resistance was declared by Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government in 1937. The Communist politburo adopted a “non-resistance” policy. “The Nationalist army paid a heavy price and it earned China the right to be one of the four great powers with a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council… Yet all this vanished in the history made up by the Chinese Communists,” says Chinese commentator Liu Xiabo.
It is not uncommon to meet young Chinese adults who believe their country to be “non-aggressive”, having fought only in self-defence. Curiously absent from their history textbooks are mentions of China’s border war with India, the annexation of Tibet and the 1979 invasion of Vietnam in retaliation for the ousting of the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge regime. Also quietly avoided are events such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and the millions of Chinese who starved to death in the ill-fated Great Leap Forward (1958-60).
The Chinese government has effectively brought an end to the anti-Japanese furore by withdrawing its backing for the protests. But the boycotts of Japanese products will, in theory, continue as opinion polls have shown a marked increase in the number of Chinese who say they will not buy Japanese goods. South Korean textbooks have been criticised in the past for downplaying the role of Korean collaborators during Japan’s colonisation of the Korean Peninsular (1910-1945).
Critics say South Korean textbooks also fail to mention the 1980 Kwangju massacre that followed declaration of martial law on May 17, 1980, by military strongman Chun Doo Hwan. Resistance to Chun’s move was quickly quelled except in Kwangju, where Special Warfare Command troops were sent in. Later officials said 193 had been killed, but the true death toll may be more than 500. Textbooks mention nothing of the massacre.
United States
Academic plagiarism chain reaction
An escalating war against academic plagiarism in the US looks set to spread to the UK after claiming its first English scalp. Following a spate of claims of plagiarism by academics in the US, The Times Higher Education Supplement has learnt that a senior Leeds University lecturer was forced to admit he copied another scholar’s work when a Harvard University undergraduate uncovered evidence. Leeds University has confirmed it had disciplined — but not dismissed — Neil Winn, senior lecturer in European studies. It says in a statement that Dr. Winn has “not denied” plagiarising from a journal article for his 1996 monograph European Crisis Management in the 1980s.
A backlash by academics and students against plagiarism in the US, in which scholars are increasingly ready to inform on one another, appears to be spreading across the globe. British academics predict that more international plagiarists will be identified.
In the Leeds case, Harvard undergraduate Tod Fine discovered that part of Dr. Winn’s monograph was nearly identical to parts of a 1992 journal paper by Steve Livingston, associate professor of political science at Middle Tennessee State University in the US. Up to five pages of Prof. Livingston’s paper, published in International Studies Quarterly, has been lifted with American spellings changed to British ones. Prof. Livingston informed Leeds of the plagiarism last year.
Prof. Livingston says that although Leeds had acted quickly and informed the book’s publishers, which pulped unsold copies of Dr. Winn’s work, he is concerned the university had not taken the issue seriously enough. “I’m told he’s teaching and at the same rank, and continuing to publish,” says Livingston. “Students typically face grave sanctions for this behaviour. What, exactly is the point of these sanctions if plagiarism is but a modest concern when committed by their professors?”
So many accusations of plagiarism have surfaced in the US after initial disclosures involving famous historians that the American Historical Association announced that it could no longer invest the “time, energy and effort” to investigate any more of them. But universities appear to be taking a tougher line.
These accusations began to snowball after civil war scholar Stephen Ambrose conceded that he had borrowed passages from other people’s work although he insisted that he had used footnotes. Then historian Doruis Kearns Goodwin acknowledged that she had “unintentionally” copied passages from a book by another author to whom Goodwin paid an undisclosed financial settlement. Ambrose and Goodwin frequently appeared on US television and were well known to the American public. Their cases have since received extensive publicity.
Iraq
Frustration over accessing pledged aid
British colleges are helping to rebuild further education in Iraq as the country attempts to restore a federal education (FE) system that was largely dismantled by Saddam Hussein. The Association of Colleges is helping Iraqi college managers to improve their skills and get access to the funds and expertise they need to re-skill the country’s workforce.
Faculty and managers from Iraqi colleges have visited the UK to learn about the latest teaching and management methods and the use of technology in further education and training, while British college chiefs recently attended Rebuild Iraq, a four-day conference in Jordan.
Iraqi FE, one of the best in the Middle East before the 1980s, will need cash for buildings, materials and lecturers’ training. One problem is that much of the help for Iraq comes via international agencies such as the World Bank and the United Nations, which Iraqis find bureaucratic and difficult to deal with. Iraq-born Ali Hadawi, vice-principal of Greenwich Community College which leads the project, says it can’t proceed further without extra resources.
Much of the work has focused on showing Iraqi colleges how to bid for funds. So far, 17 countries have pledged around $398 million (Rs.1,791 crore) to the World Bank Iraq Trust Fund. “It’s sad that we know there are substantial funds pledged by donor countries, but no one seems to be able to work out how to access them,” says Hadawi. “Our Iraqi colleagues aren’t used to accessing funds from international organisations such as the World Bank or the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. These organisations aren’t open and accessible. It’s very frustrating for both sides because we’re keen to get this work done. Students in Iraq are suffering because they don’t have labs or access to materials, and there are lecturers there who don’t have access to training and the latest techniques in teaching and learning,” he adds.
Until the 1980s the education system in Iraq was well regarded, but it declined as public funding was siphoned off for military use. It then deteriorated rapidly during the 1990-91 Gulf War and the economic sanctions. Its technical and vocational education system suffered a sharp drop in student numbers in the decade up to 2000-01 when enrollment fell from nearly 148,000 to 66,000. An analysis of education in Iraq by Unesco found an urgent need to review the vocational curriculum, devised when Iraq’s economy and industrial base was expanding. The study detailed a dilapidated infrastructure, outdated equipment and an urgent need to update teaching skills.
France
Student protests against LMD
Students are protesting against French higher education reforms required by the Bologna process. The University of Paris 8 Vincenness-Saint-Denis, set up after 1968 to accept applications without previous qualifications, has been closed after student action in response to the threat to axe its anthropology department. A movement is also growing among architecture students against proposals to change conditions under which they will be awarded their diplomas.
All French universities are scheduled to put in place Bologna’s system of three, five and eight-year studies by 2005-06. Other establishments are in the course of introducing the harmonised European process known in France as LMD (licence, equivalent to a bachelors degree, Masters and doctorate). Students union UNEF supports action against LMD and is lobbying for “substantial amendments” to overcome “numerous problems” including incoherent course programmes, low student mobility, inequality between establishments and students and lack of resources.
In April, Pierre Lunel, president of Paris 8, shut the university saying the situation no longer allowed it to operate calmly. Anthropology students, teachers and outside supporters occupied a lecture hall demanding continuation of the anthropology department which they claimed was threatened with closure under LMD, with anthropology reduced to a sub-discipline of sociology.
A Bologna-style Master’s in anthropology could not be introduced as long as there was no research team recognised by the culture ministry, but the university had applied to continue its existing diplomas for the time being, said Lunel. Protests that started among architecture students as in Rouen, against the proposed reform of their studies have spread to 26 architecture schools.
Under the old system, studies generally lasted six years; under LMD they will be reorganised into a total of five years, culminating in a Master’s degree. Students are opposed to plans to separate from the diploma the attainment of maitre d’oeuvre d’architecture status — in future they would have to spend an extra year on a work placement to acquire it. Students said this would mean working as low-paid skivvies, with their qualification to practise removed from the education system and controlled by the professionals.
Germany
Centre-state row over excellence
A row has erupted over the future of university funding in Germany after negotiations between the states and the federal government failed to make any progress on the € 1.9 billion (Rs. 9,880 crore) “excellence initiative competition” proposed by Edelgard Bulmahn, the education minister. The competition, scheduled to run from 2006-11, would provide funding for 40 outstanding graduate programmes and 30 internationally recognised centres of excellence and reward up to ten outstanding universities as “beacons of science” with an additional € 21 million (Rs.109.2 crore) each year.
Although in Germany, education and research are the responsibility of the regional state governments (Lander), the federal government has offered to provide 75 percent of the costs. But continuing opposition from conservative run Landers such as Hesse, means it is unclear whether the competition to promote German elite universities will ever go ahead. Bulmahn called the blockade a “slap in the face for universities and research centres”.
The cultural and educational independence of the Lander has become a pre-election battle-ground for conservative states and the social democratic federal government, and many academics see the universities as victims of the stalemate over federal reform. Peter Gaehtgens, chair of the German Rectors Conference, complains that universities are being “held hostage” by politicians. Earlier, in April the constitutional court rejected a petition by Roland Koch, governor of Hesse, to outlaw a federal advisory centre aimed at helping universities to implement the changes required by the Bologna process.
Canada
Scramble for merit students
Canadian universities are offering top-calibre applicants unprecedented perks as part of their recruitment efforts. Administrators from York University in Toronto, including the president and two vice-presidents, hand deliver scholarship offers of upto C$6,000 (Rs. 2.05 lakh) to the 50 highest-ranked applicants.
“We phone them, introduce ourselves and meet them at home or school,” says Barbara Brown, York’s admission director, adding that the students had “1,001 questions — when you can deal with them, they feel you are committed and connected and they’re putting a face to the university.” At Laval University in Quebec City, 160 recipients of scholarships of between C$500 (Rs.17,085) and C$2,500 (Rs. 85,425) were invited to a special ceremony with the president.
The University of Calgary says it does not boost its scholarship offers to outbid other schools, but tries to entice the cream of the crop with much sought-after single rooms in residence, 25 percent discounts at the campus bookshop and early registration, so they can get into all the classes they want.
Other universities are responding to increasingly sophisticated applicants who have found that they can auction themselves to the highest bidder. Last year a woman disappointed by the scholarship offer of the University of Waterloo contacted the president to ask if he could sweeten the deal. He did — and Waterloo now offers applicants with a 90 percent or better grade average, a meeting with the president.
Another student turned down C$40,000 (Rs.13.66 lakh) over four years from Mount Allison University in New Brunswick — the first time such an offer has been rejected, the school says — because she was able to use the offer to secure C$12,000 (Rs.4.1 lakh) per year from the president of a competing university. Quentin Huang, father of a 16-year-old maths genius used his son Yifan’s stellar high-school grades to get the best deal in a bidding battle.
The University of British Columbia in Vancouver would not let Huang live in residence with Yifan, but Simon Fraser University agreed to provide the two with a campus apartment — in addition to offering Yifan a C$10,000 (Rs.3.4 lakh) scholarship.
Despite its failure to lure the Huangs, UBC has one of the most avid recruitment schemes in the country. Since last year it has been making direct contact with all the winners of two prestigious national awards — the 70-odd recipients of Canadian Merit Scholarships valued at up to C$75,000 (Rs.26.62 lakh) and the 900 winners of Millennium Excellence Awards of upto C$20,000 (Rs.6.8 lakh). Whether they have applied to university or not it offers to give them an extra C$500 for books plus up to C$4,000 based on grades to outflank other schools.
Australia
Growing shortage of domestic professionals
Australia is failing to meet demand for local graduate professionals because it relies too heavily on skilled migrants and fee-paying foreign students, a study has found. Monash University researchers note that instead of increasing the number of Australian graduates after it took office in 1996, the Conservative government of John Howard boosted migrant intake and encouraged foreign students to become permanent residents.
The team from Monash’s Centre for Population and Urban Research found that government policy has restricted Australians’ access to university and has contributed to serious shortages of professionals. It says the government’s response has been to boost immigration. In a report published recently in the Monash journal People and Places, researchers say that virtually all of the growth that has occurred in undergraduate numbers has been among full fee-paying overseas students. Between 1996-2003, overseas student enrollments rose 125 percent, whereas Australian numbers barely changed overall and fell sharply between 2001 and 2003. The eight years to 2003 saw a steady rise in professional employment across all major fields — well above growth in domestic undergraduate enrollments.
Now with growing concern among business and industry leaders about the shortage of professionals, the government is considering boosting skilled migrant numbers by a further 20,000 next year. “Should this proposal be approved it will weight the source of new professionals even further away from domestic aspirants,” the Monash team states. “Immigration may be a short-term stop-gap but it is at the expense of opportunity for many Australians to improve their economic situation through a university degree.”
The report says that government enrollment decisions, associated with the reforms introduced by education minister Brendan Nelson will not improve the situation. Despite government claims that it will increase federally funded student places by 34,000 between 2004-08, researchers say universities will be forced to cut back on enrollments because they have previously exceeded the limit imposed by the government.
Italy
Protest against unique private varsity
Italy’s academic establishment is furious at a government decision to bestow degree-awarding powers to a private university that has no students, no faculty and that will be based in a former cinema. The F. Ranieri European University of Villa San Giovanni, in Calabria, has the right to award degrees. The qualification has the same legal standing as those awarded by state institutions.
Accreditation by the university ministry followed a decision by the national university evaluation committee, a body of experts that answers to the ministry. The venture is the brainchild of Francesco Ranieri, a former publisher. From autumn, the university will offer degrees in law, economics and medicine.
Ranieri is rector of the institution which is named after his grandfather. His son, Rocco is its administrative director, while his daughter answers the telephone on what seems to be the only line. The Italian press has dubbed the institution “the DIY university”, suggesting that its administrative council is composed of Ranieri’s friends and associates.
Alessandro Bianchi, rector of the University of Reggio Calabria, resigned as secetary-general of the Rectors’ Conference in protest. “The committee’s decision is scandalous. (This institution) has no scientific recognition. It carries out no research. It has no teachers,” says Prof. Bianchi.
Comments Rocco Ranieri: “We do not need to defend ourselves. On the basis of the documentation we submitted, Letizia Moratti, the university minister has signed our recognition. We have no teachers because we have no students, but we will by autumn. The protests have political motivations, because the Left is opposed to private universities on principle, and those who have protested are linked to the Left.”
