International News

Letter from London

Early identification debate

A question being asked with increasing frequency in academic circles is why students who attend state schools remain under-represented in Britain’s universities. Some answers are obvious: children who attend private schools which for the majority of parents are prohibitively expensive, derive the natural benefit of smaller classes, teacher involvement and intensive coaching in a wide range of subjects and examination writing skills. State school pupils in more crowded classes don’t enjoy these privileges, and those who shine in them are children who would do well irrespective of the type of school they attend.

Against this backdrop, the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT), partly funded by the Department for Education and Skills, is all set to introduce a new scheme to improve standards of government school education, so that the brightest children in state secondaries are given every opportunity to enter university. The trust has used exam results to identify 180,000 children aged 11-17 who should enter university to realise their academic potential. The names of these children will be given to their schools with the message that the management will be held responsible if they don’t achieve three As in their ‘A’ level school leaving exam.

It’s hard to speculate upon the exact nature of the threat but Sir Chris Taylor who heads SSAT says: "It is an outrage that we have 20,000 very able children in comprehensives who don’t get the three As at A level that they should do." The identified children’s names can be given to universities with parental permission, so that the latter can encourage them to apply for admission well in advance.

One obvious criticism of such early identification is that children may in effect be taking university entrance exams as early as 11 years of age, and even determining their future prematurely. It does feel like an obsession with selection, which many Labour party MPs suspect will prompt universities to pre-select the brightest children when they are as young as 11.

Defendents of early identification argue that SSAT is warning school headmasters to the effect that, "We’d be grateful if you’d ensure they’re given the necessary support to realise their potential and we’re going to track these children independently of GCSE and A level results. And if these children don’t get three As at A level we want to know why."

All said and done although the relatively low number of students accepted into universities from state secondaries is a cause of worry, it’s important that children are given enough time to develop without pressure to produce high exam results when so young.

(Jacqueline Thomas is a London-based academic)

United States

Woman successor after Summers?

As the smoke begins to clear after the departure of Harvard president Lawrence Summers, at least four women — Harvard Law school dean Elena Kagan; Drew Gilpin Faust, head of Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; University of Pennsylvania president Amy Gutmann; Nan Keohane, former president of Duke University and Wellesley College — have emerged as potential successors. If one were appointed she would be the first female president in the 350-year history of the office.

But the process of replacing the controversial leader is expected to be a long one, complicated by a politically charged atmosphere in which faculty ensured Dr. Summer’s exit with the threat of a second no-confidence vote. In the wake of his resignation announcement, there were calls from faculty and students for Dr. Summers to be replaced by a woman. His interim successor, Derek Bok, who will step in on July 1, said he expected to serve at least a year.

Prof. Bok was questioned in 2003 about the role of university presidents on a website run by the National Centre for Public Policy and Higher Education. At the time he said: "At present, responsibility lies very heavily in the hands of the president or a very few top officials. I believe that is unwise, because the president is often judged on how much money is raised. Without greater support from other constituencies in upholding the essential values of the institution, I fear that this process of erosion is bound to take place — just as it has in athletics."

Dr. Summers quit under pressure from faculty after only five years of what observers had expected to be a 20-year tenure. Critics homed in on controversial statements he had made, including one suggesting that women did not have the innate ability to compete in the sciences. The search for a successor is expected to begin soon with the appointment of a secret selection committee made up largely of members of the governing board, the Harvard Corporation, as well as an invitation for nominations from alumni, donors and others.

Faculty have traditionally not been included in presidential searches, but some academics are demanding to be closely involved this time. Several of Dr. Summer’s supporters say they would agitate for him to stay. Meanwhile, several other deanships are or are soon to become vacant, awaiting the selection of a new president to fill them. Planning, including preparations for an expected $5 billion (Rs.22,500 crore) fundraising campaign, has come to a halt.

University endowments rise again

Contributions to US universities grew by nearly 5 percent last year to more than $25 billion (Rs.112,500 crore), reversing several years of decline in giving. But just ten universities — most of them already among the world’s wealthiest — accounted for half this increase, while corporate endowments to all schools remained unchanged. The proportion of alumni making gifts declined to 12.4 percent, down from the 2001 peak of 13.8 percent, according to a report from the Council for Aid to Education.

This money won’t solve universities’ financial woes, says Ann Kaplan, director of the survey. So-called voluntary support accounts for less than 10 percent of all universities’ expenditures. "While some types of institutions, notably private liberal arts institutions, rely much more on voluntary support than institutions overall, results from our survey suggest that voluntary support could never grow sufficiently to become the primary solution to budgeting challenges," says Kaplan. But she adds: "The results indicate that giving to higher education continues to recover from the weak performances of 2002 and 2003."

Support from foundations increased significantly. Contributions from non-alumni individual givers declined slightly. And corporate giving remained unchanged at about 17 percent of all contributions.

Stanford University alone raised nearly $604 million (Rs.2,700 crore), followed by the University of Wisconsin, which benefited from a single windfall gift of nearly $300 million, giving it a total of just under $600 million in contributions last year. Investment income from university endowments grew by 9 percent, less than half as much as in 2004, but far more than in 2003, when endowment income was just 4.3 percent.

The decline in the proportion of alumni-giving is attributed in part to a change in the way it is calculated. Better record-keeping has allowed universities to track more of their living alumni, making the percentage who give appear to shrink. But the fall is also blamed on universities’ attempts to attract larger gifts.

Foreign students recruitment drive

China has designated 53 of its universities and colleges to receive overseas students sponsored by foreign governments as it continues to work its balancing act with the education budget. The China Scholarship Council (CSC) signed a contract with the universities and colleges in a move aimed at encouraging overseas students who pay more than double the fees of domestic students, to study in China.

This year, China will increase the number of sponsored overseas students from 6,700 to 10,000. There are currently more than 110,000 overseas students in China, though fewer than 30 percent of these are studying for degrees. China also made a commitment to increase scholarship money for foreign students. Zhou Ji, the education minister says the aim is to improve the image of China as a study destination. This would then attract more full fee-paying foreigners to the country.

Countries involved in the programme include Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam, Tanzania and Rwanda, while participating universities include colleges such as Tsinghua and Shanghai Jiaotong. Pakistan has also agreed to fund 1,000 teachers and researchers over the next five years to undertake doctoral study in Chinese institutions.

The Chinese government promised to increase the proportion of the budget spent on rural development in 2006, with particular emphasis on elementary schooling. The decision means that higher education institutions on the country’s richer east coast will have to tighten their belts.

China is also aware of the growing demand for higher education and is taking steps to obtain outside help. Last year restrictions on private funding of higher education were relaxed, and there were moves to increase the number of corporate-backed grants for research projects.

But while they try to get more students in from overseas, Chinese universities are acutely aware that their capacity to accommodate homegrown students is not increasing fast enough. Authorities are keen to farm out as many students as possible to universities in other countries, pledging financial support to several thousand Masters students. CSC will fund at least 7,000 applicants to study overseas in 2006, with a higher proportion of these being graduate students.

Call for teacher education varsities

Australia’s deans of education have called on the federal government to establish special universities to focus on training school teachers. In recent years, two thirds of faculties of education have been merged into larger groupings and the deans fear their elimination will lead to further cuts in funding for their departments. The Council of Australian Deans of Education argues that education-specific universities would reflect the importance of education to national prosperity and social cohesion, "and provide the discipline with a level of autonomy hitherto unseen".

In a submission to an inquiry by the House of Representatives education committee, the council notes that universities specialising in teacher training are not new but part of a growing global trend. The council says separate education universities would guarantee the budgets and autonomy that teacher educators have lost with the disappearance of most education faculties.

The House committee investigation into teacher training began early last year and has attracted more than 160 written submissions. After a presentation by the deans, the committee sought further details about the education university proposal. "I think they found it a tantalising prospect," says Terry Lovat, the council’s immediate past president and pro vice chancellor at the University of Newcastle. "If teaching is important enough to the future of the nation, is it such a silly notion to establish one or two high-end Columbia Teachers College-type universities?"

Prof. Lovat notes that the Beijing Normal University was the first teacher-training university to be founded in China in 1923, and is now among its top tertiary institutions. "Although it is research oriented, the focus is on teacher education because the Chinese believe that is where the future lies," he says. "China is setting the pace, but the trend to set up these specialist institutions is occuring throughout Asia as well as in the Scandinavian countries, and there is a lot of talk in the US and Britain."

Academic fuel to Islamic fire

An educational publisher is risking provoking further outrage in the Muslim world by republishing in a textbook the 12 cartoons of Prophet Mohammed that have sparked violent protests around the globe.

Peter Mollerup, director of Danish publisher Gyldendal’s academic division says the controversial drawings of the Prophet, which are forbidden under Islam, would be used as a teaching aid in schools. "What is happening at the moment has so great a significance that you cannot brush it under the carpet," he says. "It is essential that future generations know about these drawings. In a year’s time I don’t think we will have anything against printing them."

Mollerup told the Danish newspaper Politiken that the publishing house is not trying to further provoke Muslims and that the cartoons would be part of a comprehensive examination of the entire affair. "It’s a touchy subject and needs to become more distant, but it takes a year and a half to make a book for use in education," he says. "When that time comes, the intensity of the subject will probably have blown out."

But Imam Ahmad Abu Laban, religious director of the Muslim Society in Copenhagen who led protests against the cartoons, says they would be just as insulting to Muslims in a year’s time. The cartoons could also be put on display in Danish museums. Ervin Nielse, head of the media museum in Odense in central Denmark says he "does not rule out" exhibiting the drawings that resulted in protests and a boycott of Danish products by many Muslim countries.

Sofie Lene Bak, a researcher at Copenhagen’s Royal Library says it is vital to preserve the cartoons for future generations. "From a pedagogic view it’s important to show the drawings. However, I think it is necessary to stress what is so insulting about them — you have to explain what it’s all about."

The drawings were commissioned by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper after Kaare Bluitgen, a 46-year-old Copenhagen author, last year had difficulty finding an illustrator willing to draw pictures of the Prophet for his children’s book about Mohammed and the Koran. Despite the taboo on depicting Mohammed, the author insisted on having pictures of the Prophet because he believed it was central to the European book-writing tradition of illustrating the main character.

The book was meant to give non-Muslim Danish children a better understanding of who the Prophet was, says Bluitgen. "I tried to create understanding for a new religion and culture and it all ends up with Scandinavian embassies being burned."

Grand ecoles promote Insefi

Two of France’s most prestigious grandes ecoles are joining forces to create a new institute to develop higher education and research in economics and finance. The HEC School of Management and the Ecole Polytechnique have launched the Institut d’Economieet Finance (Insefi), Paris which they hope will become an international centre of excellence focusing on the practical needs of business and industry.

It will open this autumn with students undertaking the first year of a general Masters programme in English. This will serve as the basis of all economics and finance research Masters courses in the two schools. About 40 students will take the common programme. They will specialise during the second year in studies organised with other partners, including the universities of Paris 6 and 10, Paristech and the future Ecole d’Economie de Paris.

In the long term, the institute will also cater to about 50 Ph D students. The schools plan to recruit about 20 additional teachers and researchers.

Yannick d’Escatha, chairman of the Ecole Polytechnique governing board, says the schools will develop a centre of excellence "visible and attractive at an international level that will appeal to the best teachers, researchers and students from abroad."

Best selling anti-teacher book

A vitriolic book that lambasts the nation’s teachers for "having no idea about children", being "lazy" and having "unattractive feet" has sparked a national furore. The Teacher-Hater Book by journalist Gerlinde Unverzagt, a single mother with four children, claims primary teachers are reluctant to give out marks for fear of exposing their own inadequate teaching of the 3Rs. It says most secondary teachers are cynics who forget pupils’ names, harangue them for poor performance or humiliate them in front of classmates.

Teachers in Germany, many of whom cannot be dismissed, can get away with anything, knowing their jobs are safe, the author says. She claims most teachers spend their time "playing tennis, going skiing, making false tax declarations and converting their attics" rather than doing their jobs.

Josef Kraus, chairman of DL, Germany’s Teachers’ Association has called the book "a cheap money-spinner" which panders to base emotions and makes statements that cannot be substantiated. But the book has highlighted growing discontent among parents, a group of whom has formed the Berlin Parents Party to campaign for better educational standards. It is demanding the replacement of teachers’ permanent job status, which guarantees pay rises on the basis of the number of years worked, with performance-related pay.

The author insists that although she changed the names of the characters in the book, everything else described was true. And despite some intemperate language — teachers, we are told, dress in "baggy cords, droopy sweatshirts and open-toed sandals that show unattractive feet with yellowing, ingrowing toe nails" — it has won many parents’ sympathy. They may recognise the picture of schools that pressure working parents to get involved, yet send children home early whenever teachers are off on sick leave or away on courses.

Meanwhile, sales have shot up as a result of the controversy and the author is already working on her next book which will tell readers what she thinks is wrong with Germany’s school system.

(Compiled from The Times Educational Supplement and The Times Higher Education Supplement)