Number of Indian students in UK drops

Britain's strict student visa regulations has resulted in a dip in the numbers of Indian students in higher education by nearly a quarter last year.

Students from India coming to study at UK schools and universities fell by 23.5% overall, including a 28% drop at the postgraduate level.

Figures released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) on Friday show fewer than 30,000 students from India were studying at UK higher education institutions in 2011-12 , compared with around 40,000 in the previous year.

India, however, remains the second most common country of origin for foreign students in Britain after China, which sent 79,000 students last year.

Universities have been warning the UK government that recent changes to student visa rules mean they face losing bright foreign students to rival institutions in the United States, Canada and Australia.

School of Communication set up by Shiv Nadar University and US university

The Shiv Nadar University (SNU) today announced the launch of the School of Communication (SoC) offering undergraduate, graduate and research level programs in communication. The University also announced a new collaboration with the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania (ASC) through which ASC will assist SNU in designing the curriculum for its programs along with assisting SNU in identification and training of faculty. The partnership also established both faculty and student exchange programs. Students and faculty from both institutions will have the option of spending up to two semesters at Pennsylvania campus or at the SNU campus at Greater Noida.

Annenberg School for Communication

Nikhil Sinha, Vice Chancellor, Shiv Nadar University said, ‘The growth of communication and media in India has been exponential and India increasingly requires globally relevant research-led programs in communication. Annenberg is a globally renowned institution and stands at the forefront of education, research, and policy studies on the processes, nature, and consequences of existing and emerging media. We believe that this collaboration would help us leverage ASC’s proven track record of five decades in Communication Education and Research to create a world class communication program at the SNU School of Communication.”

Michael Delli Carpini, Dean, Annenberg School for Communication said, "The Annenberg School for Communication has been committed to responding to changes in both the nature of Communication as a social process and in Communication as a discipline. We see our partnership with the Shiv Nadar University as an opportunity help all aspiring communication professionals become better consumers and producers of public information, strengthen their understanding of the role of communication in their personal, professional and civic lives, and prepare them for private and public-sector leadership positions in communication-related and other fields. We look forward to an exciting partnership.”

Academic programs will commence in August 2013. Students completing the programs successfully will obtain a degree issued by Shiv Nadar University.

Shiv Nadar University launches dual degree in engineering with Carnegie Mellon University

The Shiv Nadar University today announced the launch of the  Carnegie Mellon Shiv Nadar Program in Electrical & Computer Engineering and Mechanical Engineering in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

These four-year undergraduate engineering degree programs will award students dual degrees – a Bachelor of Technology from Shiv Nadar University and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. 

Launched as part of the program offerings of  SNU’s School of Engineering and CMU’s College of Engineering, the Shiv Nadar Carnegie Mellon Program will commence in August 2013. Students will spend the first and third year of the Program at the SNU campus in Greater Noida and the second and fourth year at CMU’s Pittsburgh Pennsylvania campus, with opportunities to undertake summer internships in  both the US and India.

The program’s integrated curriculum and the periods in India and the US will expose students to a unique bi-national experience that will prepare them to succeed in an  increasingly globalized working environment.

Shiv Nadar University

Announcing the partnership, Nikhil Sinha, Vice Chancellor of Shiv Nadar University said, “Each year, more than 40,000 Indian students go overseas in search of global exposure and world class educational opportunities. Global education has always been a big dream for Indian students, particularly over the last two decades. This uniquely designed Program, which merges the best of SNU and CMU, is truly global in nature and will provide students an opportunity to acquire a world class education while also gaining unprecedented global experience. We believe that  the Program and our partnership with CMU will be transformational for undergraduate engineering education in India.”

Mark Kamlet, Provost & Executive Vice President, Carnegie Mellon University said, “After a decade long successful partnership with the Shiv Nadar Foundation, we are now pleased to take this relationship to the next level with the undergraduate engineering programs at SNU. Indian students are  among the brightest in the world and this program through its dual campus structure will provide them a great opportunity to learn from some of the best educators at both CMU and SNU. We believe that the Shiv Nadar University and Carnegie Mellon University share the same educational philosophies and objectives and this partnership will offer students the best of the both worlds through global curricula and pedagogy.”

    

Admissions to the program will commence in Spring 2013 (February 2013) and applicants will need to meet both SNU and CMU’s admissions criteria, including taking the SAT and TOEFL. 

Demand for Management Education Up From 2011: GMAC survey

Demand for graduate business and management education around the world shows signs of renewed growth, as 51 percent of programs surveyed by the Graduate Management Admission Council report more applications than last year.

Overall demand — as revealed in the 2012 Application Trends Survey — is spread among a greater variety of program types, including part-time self-paced, flexible, and online distance MBAs, as well as specialized master’s degrees in business, including information technology management. 

“As the global business space continues to become more complex, there is a greater demand that business schools today offer specialized and flexible programs to meet corporate and student needs,” said David Wilson, GMAC president and CEO. “Worldwide, these diverse graduate management programs are drawing different kinds of students.  Technology is a part of the solution to this challenge, but it is not the entire solution.  Flexibility in delivery mode, cadence of the program and the characteristics of the class cohort are now all variables in the graduate education solutions being offered.  The message students and companies are sending is clear; one size does not necessarily fit all.”

The annual survey, which charts year-to-year application changes at the program level, shows that specialized master’s programs in management, finance, and accounting continue to show robust growth, and applications to full-time two-year MBA programs appear to be stabilizing globally, with about half of all full-time two-year MBA programs showing increases or holding steady from last year.  

In open-ended comments, admissions professionals responding to the survey noted that economic conditions continued to play a role in student demand for programs. “[A student’s] reluctance to leave full-time position,” cited one admissions professional from a US full-time two-year MBA program. “The economy is picking up and students are finding full-time jobs or have received promotions and do not want to leave to go back to school for two years,” said another. 

A record 744 programs from 359 business schools in 46 countries participated in the survey this year. They include 527 MBA programs, 24 business doctoral programs (PhD/DBA) and 193 specialized masters programs. This year’s survey report includes, for the first time, results for masters in information technology management and masters of marketing/communications.

Learning the SMART way

SMART Technologies, a leading provider of collaboration solutions has launched the Mumbai chapter of its SMART Professional Development Program for Teachers. The programme focuses on addressing the need to train teachers in the use of interactive educational technology tools. The aim of the programme is to help educators acquire technology skills enabling them to actively integrate digital learning tools in their teaching process for improved learning outcomes. SMART plans to train around 100 teachers from over 50 schools in Hyderabad in the first wave of this programme in the city.

Photo courtesy: Hindu Business Line

Under the SMART Professional Development Program - India, SMART Technologies’ team of Education Consultants will conduct a series of workshops across 15 major cities in India in order to prepare teachers in the use of technology tools including the industry-leading SMART Notebook™ collaborative learning software. Over six million teachers have activated SMART Notebook software to create and deliver engaging lessons for more than 40 million students in 175 countries around the world. The award-winning software enables educators to bring course material alive for learners with the aid of various interactive tools, videos, images and digital activities allowing lessons to be highly engaging and dynamic for students. The training sessions will be offered to teachers at no cost.

Sanjiv Pande, MD India and South Asia, SMART Technologies said, “Well trained teachers are integral for an effective education system and it is critical to equip them with 21st century educational tools as well as offer professional development to optimize the use of such products. Taking a significant step towards addressing the need for training teachers in the use of digital tools, SMART has introduced this training series for the instructors to ensure their optimal use of SMART products and enabling them to make subject lessons more engaging for students.”

60,000 Bogus Students Could Have Entered the UK in 2011

Migration Watch, an UK-based think tank has released a study that indicates that as many as 60,000 bogus students could have entered the UK in 2011 alone.

The study is based on the findings of a Home Office pilot scheme which were published last week. Under the pilot scheme applicants for student visas were interviewed to determine whether they were genuine. This involved two tests – whether they were genuine as students and whether they intended to return home after their studies. The Home Office found that the highest percentage of bogus students came from Burma, where 62% would have been refused a visa on doubts about their credibility. In Bangladesh, India and Nigeria, 59% of students were considered as likely to be bogus. When these proportions were applied to the number of applicants from each country in the pilot, it emerged that the total came to 63,000 potentially bogus students in just one year.

Of those who were potential refusals on credibility grounds, 61% were applying for privately funded colleges, 17% for a publicly funded college and 14% for a university.

Following this pilot, the Home Office has introduced plans to interview 10,000 students a year and has set out the criteria on which they will be judged. But it is now clear that the government has lost its nerve and has dropped the second test (intention to return) from the student interview scheme which comes into force as the end of July.

The Australian authorities – often quoted by the university lobby as a good example of student immigration control – have this very test. Their recent major review considered it to be “The first item of business in assessing a student visa application.”

As for the scale of interviews, 10-14,000 a year have been mentioned but this is only about 10% of the number of applicants from the countries of immigration concern.

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch UK said, “We now have clear evidence of abuse on a major scale. Bogus students come here to work illegally and thus take jobs from British workers. If it is clear from the circumstances that a student is unlikely to go home, the visa should not be granted in the first place. After all, many of the advantages claimed for foreign students depend on their going home after their studies. These half measures simply will not do. The government have bottled out on bogus students. If they are serious about immigration they must face down the self interested demands of the Higher Education sector and pursue the public interest.”

Referring to the letter to the Sunday Times signed by 37 business leaders calling for students to be taken out of net migration, Sir Andrew Green said: “It is, in fact, impossible to take students out of net migration because, unlike the US and Australia, we still have no exit checks so nobody knows how many who came as students have actually left the UK. It seems that business leaders are clueless about immigration policy and will sign whatever is put in front of them.”

Report heralds new chapter in Indo-Australia relations

“The growth of an Indian student presence in Australia has

been messy and tragic. But it heralds an important new chapter in Australia’s

place in its region.” (Robin Jeffrey)

Beyond the Lost Decade, released in Sydney on Tuesday by the Australia-India Institute, throws up some interesting facts about the student crisis and the India-Australia relations.

For instance, according to the report, the first violence against Indian students actually came from Lebanese taxi drivers, migrants from a similar background, who found the new Indian arrivals undercutting them. It was an economic battle between two migrant groups and certainly not a racist attack on Indians. The report also indicated how Indian media magnified it as official policy of racial discrimination.

However, the report stresses on the fact that the student crisis may have done India-Australia relations a good turn. “For Canberra, they have served to emphasise just how important the role and experience of the Indian diaspora can be for a host country in terms of forging ties with Indian government and society.Indian perceptions of other countries are often shaped by the conditions and achievements of the Indian community there.”

The report also ends with many valuable recommendations to improve Indo-Australia relations in higher education such as:

• Undertake as an act of goodwill to extend the visas of Indian students who were in Australia on February 8, 2010, and whose pathways towards permanent residency in Australia were affected by changes to immigration regulations in that year. Such extensions or issuance of alternative categories of visa should be granted for at least 12 months from December 31, 2012.

• Extend the post-study work entitlement currently enjoyed by international students at universities to all TAFE institutes and reputable private colleges offering vocational training.

• Expand the study of contemporary India at Australian universities by providing initial funding for twenty B-level university teaching/research positions for the next five years, after which the universities fund the positions.