As the commencement (graduation) season reaches its peak, speakers and honorary degree recipients selected by US universities have prompted protests over issues ranging from the Iraq war to labour disputes and religious rifts.

These otherwise happy occasions, at which degrees are conferred on graduates, are expected to be marred by noisy demonstrations. Some students and faculty members have vowed to turn their backs on controversial speakers. One adjunct professor of English at Boston College resigned in protest at the conferral in end May of an honorary degree on Condolezza Rice, secretary of state, by the Jesuit Catholic University.

In an open letter to the university’s president, Steve Almond says it is "reprehensible" that the school would "entrust to Rice the role of moral exemplar". "I can’t in good conscience undertake that academic mission when the institution I’m working for invites an honorary degree recipient who has publicly lied to the American people repeatedly, not once or twice, but outright lied and misrepresented the situation in Iraq and elsewhere over and over," says Dr. Almond an author who taught writing at the university. Several hundred faculty have signed a separate letter protesting against the award of an honorary degree to Dr. Rice, and students and faculty have also held a rally.

Likewise about 1,000 students at the New School, a university in New York City with deep liberal roots, signed a petition protesting the selection of Republican Senator John McCain as their commencement speaker because of his opposition to abortion and his other conservative stands. At Portland State University in Oregon, students objected to the choice of Congressman Peter Fazio because of his support for a proposal to increase criminal penalties for illegal immigrants and anyone who helps them.

At Louisiana State University, students have urged a boycott of the commencement at which Dick Cheney, the vice-president was to speak. And at Oklahoma State University, President George W. Bush was greeted by several hundred demonstrators when he addressed graduates. Most of the protestors were objecting to the war in Iraq.

In Florida, Muslim and some non-Muslim students have written a letter to the president of Nova South-eastern University to decry the choice of author Salman Rushdie as the commencement speaker.

Budget deficit impacts student loans

US students are paying the price for a government budget deficit fuelled by the Iraq war, natural disasters and tax cuts. Interest rates on student loans will rise from 5.3 percent to 7.14 percent, a hike of more than one third. Interest on a popular government-backed loan for parents will climb from 6.1 percent to nearly 8 percent, partly as a result of deficit-reduction legislation.

The changes will add $5,123 (Rs.2.3 lakh) to a typical loan of $20,000 (Rs.9 lakh) according to Sallie Mae, the principal lender. The reasons behind the hike are complex. The deficit-reduction Bill passed in May by Congress, significantly reduced government subsidies to lenders to help offset the budget deficit. Lenders then passed the interest on to parents.

These soaring costs coincide with a survey that found that graduates feel student loans have as much of an affect on their lives as education. A survey by Alliance-Bernstein Investments found that some seven out of ten were repaying loans averaging $ 29,000 (Rs.13.05 lakh). Some 40 percent of 1,508 respondents expect to take more than ten years to clear their loans. The debt stopped 44 percent from buying a house, while about a quarter put off dental or medical treatment.

Higher education boom forces focus change

China’s decision to cap soaring university enrollments is likely to increase demand for study overseas. The State Council has decided to restrict the growing number of tertiary students in a bid to improve teaching conditions and reduce graduate unemployment.

Overseas education is a popular choice for those who do not get into a prestigious Chinese university. Increased competition for places will only add to the number who head abroad. China has 23 million students in higher education, more than any other country in the world. But, according to a recent report of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China is facing a graduate-related crisis. In 1999, when the government launched its higher education expansion project, universities enrolled 1.59 million students, up 48 percent on the previous year. Last year, colleges and universities enrolled 5.04 million students, nearly five times as many as in 1998.

Yet over the next six months 60 percent of new graduates will be unable to find work, as the number of graduates jumps 22 percent from last year to more than 4 million, while the number of available jobs will have dropped to 1.66 million.

Critics argue that the policy will do nothing to address the wider problem of unemployment. The level of surplus labour this year will reach 14 million, about 1 million more than last year, the NDRC report says.

The State Council’s announcement calls for improvement in vocational training and adult education to compensate for the reduction in the number of university places. Councillors have called for improved teaching standards and stricter regulation of university management, in particular the prohibition of "excessive" fees.

This move will find few friends in universities which are feeling the pinch from budget changes earlier this year that shifted the focus of spending from higher education to primary and secondary schooling in rural areas.

France

Compulsory core curriculum for schools

French schools will be required to follow a compulsory core curriculum for the first time ever. The new curriculum goes beyond merely ensuring pupils reach minimum standards in mainstream subjects. Schools will be compelled to introduce pupils to a set of common values and cultural knowledge, teach pupils about European culture and history, diversity, social skills, human rights and globalisation.

All pupils will be expected to master a "common foundation of knowledge and skills" by age 16. Education minister Gilles de Robien recently unveiled the foundation’s requirements, with publication of the draft decree calling for the introduction of the changes in primary schools from September.

According to de Robien, the foundation constitutes a "restructuring act". For the first time since Jules Ferry’s 1882 education laws introducing compulsory, secular, free state schooling, France will "clearly specify the essential content of compulsory education". The foundation will specify the minimum that all pupils upto age 16 should accomplish, including those who chose to take vocational training courses from age 14.

The reform, which should be fully operational from 2008, lays down the standards pupils must achieve in key subjects — French, maths, science and technology, a foreign language and mastery of "everyday information and communication techniques". To this it adds what the decree calls "humanistic culture". Aimed at providing pupils with common cultural benchmarks, this subject will draw on literature, history and geography, and emphasise European culture and the EU. It will also introduce topics such as diversity of civilisations and religions, human rights, globalisation and sustainable development.

The minister also plans to add two other subjects: ‘social and civic skills’ will tell pupils about the rules for living in a community, such as values, behaviour and recognition of the rights of other people; ‘autonomy and initiative’ will teach children such skills as thinking for themselves, carrying out projects, taking decisions and calculating risks.

Role reversal at Summerhill

Summerhill, the progressive school famous for its free-range pupils, is now having to take on a "disciplinarian" role to cope with the results of modern permissive parenting. Zoe Neill Readhead, head of Suffolk "free school" where pupils choose whether to attend lessons, reveals the changes it is facing in a new book, exclusively previewed in The Times Education Supplement.

"We see the result of parental interference and over-indulgence all the time," writes the daughter of A.S. Neill, the founder of Summerhill. "In the 1940s and 1950s, Summerhill was the place where children learned that adults would not brutalise or frighten them. Now the Summerhill community finds itself in the role of disciplinarian, teaching kids that they can’t do what they like and that they have to have regard for other people’s rights and feelings. A bit of role reversal that Neill would have found interesting!"

Zoe Readhead has been head of the school since 1985. She was a pupil at Summerhill, sent her four children there and two of her grandchildren now attend.

Summerhill, often described as the "oldest children’s democracy in the world", operates according to the same principles that it was founded on in 1921. Rules are decided in regular school meetings of pupils and staff where the vote of a five-year-old has equal weight to that of the head. They are pinned up in the lounge and have included gems such as "If you piss on the bog seat you have to wipe it off", and "You can’t use animals as shooting targets".

But Readhead told The TES that she believes the school is now operating in a different social context with weakened family structures. "In the old days you brought children up in the same way in which you had been and your mother and probably your grand-parents were around to see that you got it right. Today that doesn’t happen and parents are really desperate to know what to do," she says.

But her concerns have not led to a sudden switch to authoritarianism at the boarding school where annual fees range from £ 5,481-11,166 (Rs.4.6-9.5 lakh). Summerhill went through a tough period in the 1990s with a series of critical Ofsted inspections and a TV documentary that showed pupils decapitating a rabbit and bathing nude. But after winning a legal showdown with the government in 2000 which cost the school £130,000, it has thrived and now has 84 pupils, an increase on the average of 60 while A.S. Neill was head.

Oz varsity heads most well off

British vice-chancellors are worse off in terms of their salaries, taxes and quality of life than their counterparts in Australia and the US, a comparative survey suggests. The study indicates that the purchasing power in real terms of remuneration available to Australians is significantly higher than of British and US university heads. According to Lisa Soh, a commerce student at the University of Western Australia who conducted the study, tax considerations are also more favourable in Australia, as is the quality of life.

"Vice-chancellors in the UK, on the other hand, appear to be the losers in the international comparison, with lower real remuneration and a less favourable tax situation," says Soh. "This may be an important consideration for prospective Australian vice-chancellors currently living overseas. It may also reflect the fact that Australian vice-chancellors are of higher quality on average, than their international counterparts," she adds.

Soh calculated the remuneration variations using a relative price index called the ‘Big Mac’. This represents a standard basket of goods and services in more than 100 countries. The comparison was based on vice-chancellor remuneration reported by The Times Higher Education Supplement for the UK and The Chronicle of Higher Education in the US, and Soh’s own analysis of university annual reports in Australia.

According to her, Australian vice-chancellors have a real-terms remuneration 43 percent higher than those in the US. British vice-chancellors, have 31 percent less purchasing power relative to Americans. "This indicates that UK vice-chancellors are the lowest paid," says Soh. "Taking taxes and other social contributions into account, vice-chancellor remuneration in Australia is the most attractive."

The survey revealed that vice-chancellors’ average income plus benefits is nearing A$ 500,000 (Rs.1.69 crore) a year, a rise of 60 percent since 2001 in many cases. In contrast, academic salaries have increased by 23 percent — a professor earns A$120,000 (Rs.40 lakh), a senior lecturer less than A$80,000 (Rs.27 lakh) and a research assistant about A$ 40,000 (Rs.13.5 lakh).

Soaring price of higher education

Higher education in Japan has borne the brunt of prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s market-driven reforms, leaving academics fearful that university could become beyond the reach of bright Japanese youth of limited means.

Tuition fees are among the highest in the world. They average ¥ 802,000 (Rs.3.12 lakh) per year at national institutions and ¥1.29 million (Rs.5.03 lakh) at private ones, according to the ministry of education’s 2004 survey. Even national university fees are four times those of UK institutions and 2.5 times those of US state universities.

Undaunted, the government pushed up its fees again last year amid protests by academics and students and hinted at more rises in its bid to "close the gap with private institutions". The policy of letting the recipient bear the cost of education has been fully embraced by the prime minister under his structural reform programme.

But unlike the US, which budgets more than $10 billion a year (Rs.45,000 crore) for scholarships, there is nothing comparable in Japan. The only help available to students are loans of between ¥ 30,000 and ¥ 100,000 (Rs.11,700-39,000) per month. Interest-free loans, though still available in a limited number of cases, have been cut back and fee waiver for those going into teaching has been abolished.

Asuka Iwasaki (19) a second-year student at Tokyo University majoring in Japanese literature, and her boyfriend have started a petition demanding a reduction in fees. "The widespread thinking is that education is a service offered only to those who can pay for it," she says.

New lending terms mean that repayment starts within six months of graduating, regardless of whether the graduate has a job. Debt-collection firms pursue borrowers in arrears. "These loans are no longer attractive," says a student at Meiji University in Tokyo.

Academics fear that escalating fees combined with lack of scholarships and reliable financial support by the government could make university inaccessible to hard-up pupils. Academic standards are already suffering, according to a professor emeritus of Chiba University. Most students work part time to help pay their way, leaving less time and energy for studies.

Soviet style dismissal order

The dean of one of Russia’s leading university history faculties is fighting to keep his job after his rector dismissed him on allegations of "anti-government attitudes" and undermining academic authority. Velikhan Mirzekhanov, elected dean of Saratov State University’s history faculty twice in the past seven years, says that the dismissal order reflects a nationwide trend towards pressuring academics to demonstrate their loyalty to the state by joining United Russia, the key political party that backs President Vladimir Putin.

Prof. Mirzekhanov says the move by rector Leonid Kossovich to sack him without reference to the faculty’s electoral body, its academic council, follows clashes over growing bureaucracy at the university, lack of financial transparency and a dictatorial management style.

The dispute came to a head mid-April after a series of complaints about political activity, mismanagement and allegations of falsified students’ marks. The rector called a faculty meeting at which he announced Mirzekhanov’s dismissal. The historians present walked out, leaving the rector with his staff and members of the university’s 150-strong uniformed security staff. The next day, an impromptu meeting of many of the faculty’s 2,000 students and 120 staff was broken up by security officers, some armed.

"It is as if Soviet history is repeating itself as farce — the tactics of 1937 being applied to 2006," says Mirzekhanov. "The rector’s accusations — all unsubstantiated — that I was involved in anti-government activity, connected with the political opposition, attempting to foment an ‘orange revolution’ in my faculty and — because I receive Western grants — a supporter of Western ideology, smacked of periods of Soviet repression. I did not believe something such as this could happen at my university until it did."

The confrontation has forced the rector on the defensive and he temporarily suspended the dean’s sacking, pending a full university academic council discussion. Meanwhile Mirzekhanov is taking legal action against the rector, citing university regulations which state that only the body that elected him, the history faculty’s academic council, can dismiss him before his tenure expires in 2008.

Comments Boris Kagarlitsky, director of Moscow’s Institute for Globalisation Studies: "Whatever the real reason (for the dispute), you can’t help noticing that it occurred immediately after he (Prof. Mirzekhanov) was criticised by the State Duma deputy from United Russia. The response from university officials was speedy even by Soviet standards — and today we supposedly have a multi-party political system."

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