S P Jain wins international TeamMBA award

After more than 21,000 votes were cast online in May, two business schools ― SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (India) and the College of William and Mary Mason School of Business (United States)―won TeamMBA awards for their community service and social responsibility programs. The winners were announced today by the Graduate Management Admission Council at its Annual Conference, the largest gathering of graduate business school professionals in the world.

A total of 78 service programs from schools around the world were considered for the TeamMBA award. These programs involved nearly 1,500 students who volunteered almost 50,000 hours and raised US$2.6 million.

“In honoring these two great institutions, we  also recognize the tremendous spirit and passion that business school students around the world have for giving back to their community and to their commitment to improving the lives of others,” said Dave Wilson, president and CEO of GMAC. “These are challenging times for many people all over the world and to see the effort that these students are putting in to making a difference is truly remarkable. Today's MBAs and other graduate business students fiercely embrace their obligation to give back and make the world a better place.”

SP Jain won the All School Award, which recognizes a school for its commitment to promoting and supporting social engagement by its students through school-led programs, services, institutional culture and community outreach. Through more than a dozen individual, team and school-wide projects, students at SP Jain worked to improve the lives of women, milk and agricultural growers, disaster victims and rural villagers.

The College of William and Mary Mason School of Business won the All Service Award, which recognizes outstanding projects in categories such as community service, sustainability/greening and consulting, for engaging in a variety of projects, including a mustache auction to raise money to start a microlending account, two blood drives that collected 100 pints of blood, and raising tens of thousands of dollars for local and global charities.

Student route back door to Britain?

The debate over Britain’s immigration policy continues.

Migration Watch, a UK-based think tank, has challenged the call by 70 University Chancellors, in a recent letter to the Prime Minister, for overseas students to be taken out of the migration statistics. This would achieve nothing except to destroy public confidence in the government’s immigration policy while any significant expansion of foreign students could blow the government’s immigration policy seriously off course.

According to the study published by Migration Watch UK:

Britain’s main competitors – the US, Australia and Canada all include students in their net migration figures (while distinguishing them for internal administrative purposes). Unlike Britain, the same countries interview students before a visa is granted to test whether they are genuine and whether they really intend to return home after their course. A major Australian report found recently that these interviews did not deter genuine students. The UK should re-introduce them.

The US and Australia both have checks on the departure of individual students which are still not possible in the UK. Over the past ten years two million non EU and ½ million EU students have been admitted to Britain to study for more than a year but the government has not the slightest idea how many have actually left. Universities UK accept that about 20% of students stay on legally – that amounts to net migration of 50,000 a year.

Some of those from poorer countries are likely to stay on illegally. Migration Watch estimate that they could add a further 25,000 per year bringing the total to 75,000. If the number of foreign students was allowed to increase still further as the universities wish to see, students could eventually add 90 - 100,000 a year to net migration.

A 10% change in the number of foreign students would change the UK’s annual foreign exchange earnings by only about 0.2%.

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman Migration Watch UK said “Foreign students are valuable but the present system is far too easily abused. Sadly, the student route has become the back door to Britain and it is wide open. Unlike our main competitors, we do not interview students before they come to confirm that they are genuine and there are no checks on their departure. We cannot have a massive inflow of a quarter of a million students a year without their contributing heavily to immigration. Taking them out of the statistics would achieve nothing. The government must thoroughly tighten up the student system or any attempt to reduce the current mass immigration will be blown seriously off course.

Nicola Dandridge, Chief Executive of Universities UK, said: "In many respects the Migration Watch UK report makes valid and important points. The letter from university Chancellors to the prime minister states that any abuse of the student visa route needs to be tackled. UK universities are fully signed up to that agenda.

"But the Migration Watch report is wrong in calling for international students to be counted within the UK's migration figures. The Chancellors were calling for the government to remove international students from net migration figures in order to make a clear distinction between temporary and permanent migrants for the UK's own internal policy purposes. This would actually increase public confidence in the immigration system. No one is suggesting that international students should not be counted in the immigration system.”

Dual degrees with world's top 500 varsities

In a move to regulate the country's higher education sector,  the University Grants Commission has approved new regulations governing foreign university partnerships, barring entry to all but the top 500 globally-ranked universities. In order to be eligible to offer joint degrees or other twinning programmes, foreign universities must be listed among the top 500 in the Times Higher Education or Shanghai Jiaotong University world rankings, while Indian universities must have received the highest grade from the National Assessmentand Accreditation Council or the National Board of Accreditation. Universities with existing partnerships will be allowed six months to comply with the new regulations, or face penalties.

While the government’s move to regulate partnerships by allowing access to elite institutions should be lauded, there are many non-elite institutions worldwide that offer a diverse range of high-quality programmes. The new regulations would deprive Indian students from accessing those programmes.