Opposition from religious conservatives has stalled Saudi Arabia’s plans to introduce English language teaching into primary-level education. Recently the ministry of education announced that plans to start teaching English in grades IV and V had been put on hold and that distribution of a revised English language course for use from grade VI, the last year of primary school, is also delayed. According to Dr. Mohammad Al Ahaydib, supervisor of the ministry’s General English Project, the proposal to teach English from grade IV had been approved by the Saudi cabinet but it had been blocked by influential religious conservatives.

Saudi school scene: English skills shortage

But as the country prepares to join the World Trade Organisation, possibly as early as this year, the Saudi authorities recognise that its English-language skills shortage will also have a serious impact at home. Close to 40 percent of the population is under 15 years old and without English, young people will continue to be excluded from the domestic jobs market and lose out to expatriate workers.

Dr. Al-Ahaydib shares the government’s concerns about English skills. He has been working on plans to develop a new curriculum since 2002 when the government first announced its commitment to introduce English into primary schools. These have been frustrated by what he says is a "vocal minority", who fear that giving more time to English in the school curriculum will undermine Arabic teaching and introduce unwanted foreign ideas.

"I don’t think we are taking proper steps to improve the quality of English language teaching," says Dr. Al-Ahaydib. "Our plans are ready, we can execute them at any time, but we are facing conflict within the ministry. This is a minority with a loud voice that can also influence high levels of government and affect the decision."

But as well as opposition from conservatives, Saudi Arabia faces another daunting hurdle to expanding English provision — it does not have enough teachers. There is a serious shortage of male English teachers that is exacerbated by the strict rules on segregation of teachers and students by gender. With no prospect of these rules being relaxed, the ministry has been forced to recruit from abroad and last year it employed 300 teachers from Egypt, Jordan and Syria to help introduce English classes into grade VI.

Harvard tops medical school rankings

Harvard Medical School is still the world’s best, according to an expert peer review panel of medical researchers. For the second year running, Harvard has beaten Cambridge and Oxford universities in the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) rankings for biomedicine.

Harvard Medical (including dental) school spent more than $ 413 million (Rs.1,900 crore) on research in 2004. It has an endowment of about $2.5 billion (Rs.11,500 crore) and more than 9,000 staff. This analysis pairs the opinions of medical scientists among a 2,400-strong peer review panel with citations per paper in biomedicine achieved by authors from the named universities.

Harvard Med: top billing

The top 100 includes 29 US institutions. In THES review of science universities (October 7) Germany and the UK tied for second place after the US, but in medicine the panel regards Australia as the world’s second power behind the US, with 14 entrants.

Many, including Beijing University which is ranked eighth in the peer review, missed out because their researchers publish little in English. Others, such as Sydney University and the Australian National University, may not have the requisite 5,000 papers.

Cheating spurs GRE reforms

The entrance exam for US graduate schools is being revamped and expanded after widespread cheating. Some 500,000 people a year take the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) in 180 countries. The test has changed from October and will be lengthened from two and a half hours to more than four.

The questions will be used only once and examinations will start at exactly the same time, regardless of time zone, so that students cannot pass on information. The test will also no longer be offered in a computer-adaptive format, where the difficulty of the test is determined by the candidate’s right or wrong answers. Instead it will be offered in a linear format in which every student takes the same exam.

The most significant overhaul in the GRE’s 55-year history is largely a response to evidence of widescale cheating. About a quarter of the students who take the test live outside the US, and students in China, Taiwan and South Korea have been caught memorising questions and answers posted on the internet by candidates in different time zones. Some Chinese organisations are alleged to be hiring people to take digital photos of GRE questions at test centres.

In another scam, Americans used transmitters to convey the test questions to candidates yet to sit the exam. "The new test will emphasise complex reasoning skills that are closely aligned to graduate work," says David Payne, executive director of the GRE division of the Educational Testing Service, which administers the exam from Princeton, New Jersey. "We’ll include more real-life scenarios and data interpretation questions, and new, more focused writing questions," he adds.

Instead of continuous testing, candidates will be able to sit the GRE on 29 specific dates worldwide. Graduate school admissions officers will be able to see each student’s essay responses on the analytical writing section if they choose. "These changes are intended to make the GRE a more accurate gauge of how qualified prospective students are to do graduate-level work," says Payne.

New evidence for inclusive education

Children with special needs who attend mainstream schools are likely to achieve more and live fulfilling lives, according to speakers at a major international conference organised in end October by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Many children with disabilities who in some countries may be considered unable to benefit from education, in fact do well from attending school.

Comments Peter Evans, head of the OECD’s special education needs programme: "The ratio of workers to retired citizens is dropping, so we need as many people as possible in the labour force, including the disabled. Our research shows that on average, disabled children in regular schools perform better than those in special schools. Those who go to special schools follow a different curriculum and it is difficult to integrate them into society after school. There is also much less prejudice against them if they have attended regular schools."

Evans cites OECD’s Programme for International Students Assessment (Pisa) results for 2003 which showed disabled students doing surprisingly well. The average child with functional disability scored 460 points against an average of 483 for a student without special needs. The average child with an intellectual disability scored 390 points.

Adds Diane Richler, president of Inclusion International, a non-government organisation for the disabled: "Classroom diversity improves academic results for all students. The classroom must focus more on individualised needs — in this way, for example, children with special needs and those who are academically gifted can benefit. Canada has adopted this approach and we can see the success of its educational system."

According to Evans, Italy offers one of the best examples of a successful, inclusive educational system. Many classrooms, with an average of 22 pupils, have two teachers — one regularly trained and another trained to teach pupils with special needs. In Norway many teachers in regular schools have been taught sign language. Now more than 50 percent of deaf children are taught alongside hearing children.

Declining Chinese students inflow

Universities in Australia can no longer rely on increasing numbers of fee-paying students from China to boost their incomes, according to a report. The number of Chinese students going abroad to study is stabilising, the report says. This is because China’s higher education sector is expanding rapidly and students who obtain foreign qualifications are no longer guaranteed a job on their return.

Chinese students in Oz: immigration incentive

Considerable variations exist between the students who apply to remain in Australia. About 25 percent of all overseas students who completed their courses in 2002 gained permanent residence visas. But the proportion from China who did so was 38 percent and the proportion from India was 66 percent.

The report, commissioned by the recruiting agency IDP Education Australia, was prepared by Bob Birrell, director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University. Birrell notes that applications from Chinese students for visas to study in Australia levelled out last year and, as a result, the number of students beginning their studies is also likely to stabilise. In an analysis of data supplied by the immigration and education departments, Dr. Birrell concludes that changes to immigration rules are unlikely to affect enrollments of students from Australia’s traditional markets of Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia or from Europe and North America.

Students applying for permanent residence after completing their courses tend to prefer Masters courses, particularly in computing and accounting. This is because these fields offer the cheapest and shortest route to occupational qualifications that satisfy immigration requirements.

MIT clone proposal controversy

The European Commission’s idea of creating a European Institute of Technology (EIT) to rival the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has sparked hostility and scepticism among universities. Brussels is consulting widely on the idea, which was proposed in the mid-term review of the Lisbon Process "as a pole of attraction for the best minds, ideas and companies from around the world".

The European University Association (EUA) is consulting members about its position. Its spokeswoman, Elizabeth Tapper says there is concern that "the funding of an EIT could prove problematic given that the proposed increased budget for Framework 7 (the next European research funding round) is under threat." This could affect support for the European Research Council, "an instrument that European universities consider crucial for the development of their research efforts," she adds.

Universities UK says it shares the concerns of the European Research Advisory Board (Eurab) that a world-class institute cannot be created from top down. "Any resources earmarked for an EIT would be better redirected to the ERC," a spokesman says. "Better science will flow from a well funded ERC which will ensure that the European Union is able to support excellent research."

Neil Selwyn, a senior lecturer in information technology and society at the Cardiff School of Social Sciences says governments are "notoriously poor brokers of technology projects" that often ignore advice on technology. "The Commission may bring along too much baggage for an institute like this to function well," he says.

Another leading academic is of the opinion that the proposed EIT is likely to compete with the ERC not only for funding but also in the allocation of big research projects, which could result in loss of direction in the EU scientific community. "The commission’s analysis is sound, but the proposed solution is not sensible," he says.

None of this will hearten Jan Figel, the EU education commissioner, who believes that an EIT "could play an innovative role in supporting knowledge transfer and in attracting the best researchers and companies from around the world to work in partnership". The EUA Council is to consider the issue at its meeting in Uppsala, Sweden shortly.

Clash over university autonomy

European Union membership talks with Turkey will lead to a major overhaul of the way the country’s universities are run, according to Huseyin Celik, the education minister.

Therefore Yok, the higher education council that controls the country’s universities would have to be overhauled. "The EU progress report states that Yok can’t continue with its centralist structure, which controls everything related to universities. Actually, a change in Yok is a necessity for the efforts for democratisation in Turkey," says Celik.

For the past three years, Yok has been at loggerheads with the Islamic-oriented government over its contentious drive to impose a headscarf ban on female students. Despite intense grassroots pressure, the ruling AKP has balked from curtailing its powers because of the fear of a backlash from Turkey’s powerful secular establishment.

Yok has wide-ranging powers over universities and is accountable only to the president. But Dr. Celik appears prepared to reform it. "We are trying to democratise in every field — it is impossible for Yok to stay with its centralist structure."

In a 2004 progress report on discussions with Turkey, the EU says of Yok: "This highly centralised structure prevents universities from having sufficient academic, administrative and financial autonomy." It concludes that Yok’s coordinating role "should be re-examined".

But there are concerns over the nature of any change. Celik say he wants to transfer power back to universities, but in October he blocked all new appointments of academic staff lower than assistant professor. Comments an assistant professor at an Istanbul University who wants to remain anonymous: "This is about the government wanting to control appointments so it can place its own people in universities." Fears are growing that any reform of Yok could result in the politicisation of universities.

Government targets internet usage

Zimbabwean academics and students have been affected by, but not specifically targeted for, internet and e-mail restrictions. It has been their involvement in human rights and opposition activities, rather than in universities, that has drawn the attention of state security operatives. "Zimbabwe has a strong student movement. Students, along with academics, have exercised their role as critical analysts," says Zoe Titus, a media freedom specialist at the Namibia-based Media Institute of Southern Africa.

President Mugabe: internet control attempt