SCIENCE & EDUCATION

In a bid to extend its global footprint, Chinese business school Ceibs is to teach its first executive programme in Europe. The school, which started life in Shanghai but now has several campuses across China, already teaches an Executive MBA degree - an MBA for working managers - in Ghana.

Five underperforming public universities in South Korea will have to undergo drastic reforms under government supervision, the education ministry said Friday.The five state-funded four-year universities -- Kangwon National University, Chungbuk National University, Gangneung-Wonju National University, Kunsan National University and Busan National University of Education -- are required to draw up reform measures by January next year and have the government check the progress each quarter.

Colleges and universities across Scotland are set to be merged under a major shake-up of further and higher education.Education secretary Mike Russell outlined plans for removing what he called "wasteful duplication" across the college sector, by establishing regional groupings of institutions.He also called for greater collaboration between Scotland's universities, outlining the possibility of mergers there too if they made "educational and financial sense".

Carnegie Mellon University plans to open a branch campus in Rwanda next year, making it one of the few American colleges offering degrees in Africa.While a number of American universities work on the continent, often establishing partnerships with local institutions on research, faculty-training programs, and other educational ventures, Carnegie Mellon's appears to be the largest commitment to date.The Pittsburgh-based institution will be the first American university to operate a full-fledged campus in Africa, said Kevin Kinser, co-director of the Cross-Border Education Research Team at the State University of New York at Albany, which tracks branch campuses worldwide.

As widely expected, applications to MBA programmes have dropped this year, according to the latest statistics from the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which administers the GMAT test, widely regarded as the entrance test for business school. But applications to specialised masters degrees are on the up.Two-year MBA programmes, the bread and butter of US business schools, have been particularly badly hit. More than two-thirds (67 per cent) of business schools offering two-year, full-time MBA programmes reported a decline in application volume in 2011 compared with 2010.

New laws will be introduced to discourage government university lecturers joining private universities, Higher Education Minister S B Dissanayake said. The minister said laws will be introduced to prevent government lecturers joining as full time staff of private universities within three years after resigning from state universities. “However, government university teachers will not be prevented from functioning as visiting lecturers of private universities,” he added. Higher Education Ministry sources said that the ministry has decided to initiate these measures since there is a tendency for state university lecturers vacating their posts to join private universities for better perks and privileges.

A failure to retain female researchers remains a major barrier to recruiting an extra 1 million researchers by 2020, a leading European official has warned. Stefaan Hermans, head of the European Commission's research and innovation unit, said too many female postgraduate researchers were dropping out of a research career because entry-level jobs were "precarious" and unsuited to family life. Speaking this week at an international conference in Manchester organised by the research career development body Vitae, Mr Hermans said the lack of women in the profession could frustrate the commission's efforts to recruit an extra 1 million researchers by 2020.

The Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency (HERQA) of Ethiopia announced last week that it had banned five private higher education institutions because of quality concerns, writes Yonas Abiye for Ezega.com.The agency also said it had given another 13 private colleges one year to improve the quality of their education and achieve the necessary standards based on the inputs and directives the agency demands.

LONDON, Sept. 6. - One of China's top business schools opened an office in London on Tuesday.The Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB) is Chinese mainland's first "homegrown" business school to establish an overseas branch. The school seeks to provide customized business courses for European executives who are or will be dealing with business issues related to China and the rest of Asia.CKGSB's European branch will offer leading corporate clients insights into China's economy and businesses, like how multinational corporations, state-owned enterprises and private companies compete and collaborate in China, East Asia and even in the global market.

The Malaysian government is conducting a study to find out the total number of universities - public and private - needed by the country in order to produce the desired number of graduates. Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Khaled Nordin said the purpose of the study was to maintain the quality of Malaysian universities and strengthen the higher education sector, writes Husna Yusop for The Sun Daily.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has lifted its two-year-old ban on MPhil and PhD courses through correspondence, the U-turn apparently forced by legal opinion against the move following protests from universities.Open universities like Ignou and several general universities had protested the ban on the ground that their respective laws, passed by Parliament or legislatures, allowed them to offer such courses. Ignou had even continued to offer such programmes. Faced with the resistance, the higher education regulator sought legal opinion on whether it could override such powers conferred by the acts to the universities.

Sri Lanka is on track to attract about 10 foreign universities under an initiative to expand tertiary education, with the Bangkok-based Asian Institute of Technology among them, reports Lanka Business Online. The AIT is expected to set up a campus in Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka, Higher Education Ministry Secretary Sunil Jayantha Navaratne said. India's Manipal University is to set up a campus near Negombo, north of Sri Lanka's capital Colombo.

The first qualifying round of the Sweden-India Nobel Memorial Quiz 2011 will be held in this tech hub Sep 10, the Swedish embassy said on Thursday.Being organised by the embassy in partnership with leading Swedish firms operating in India during the upcoming Nobel Memorial Week, the inter-collegiate quiz contest will celebrate the spirit and contribution of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish innovator, entrepreneur and philanthropist."The quiz will bring together undergraduate and post-graduate students from colleges and institutes in the city. Winners of the Bangalore round will represent the city at the grand finale to be held October 15 at IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) in New Delhi," the embassy said in a statement.

Malaysia is the 11th most sought-after country for tertiary education among international students, reports the official agency Bernama. Private Higher Education Institutions Deputy Director-general Datin Dr Siti Hamisah Tapsir said last week that Malaysia now accounts for 2% of the international student population around the world.

It took a bit longer than expected, but the university in Ghana started a decade ago by a visionary Microsoft engineer finally has its own campus. Ashesi University is moving from rented space in the city of Accra to a 100-acre suburban campus due to formally open this weekend, writes Brier Dudley for The Seattle Times.A contingent of supporters from the US, many with Microsoft ties, was expected to join ambassadors, Ghanaian officials and village chiefs for the opening. Several said the campus is much more than a collection of new buildings for the school. It represents the vision and commitment of Patrick Awuah, who left the security of a job writing software in Redmond to pursue a crazy dream building a university in his homeland.

Stockholm University is not only one of the largest universities in Scandinavia, with around 50,000 students, but is also generally ranked among the top 100 universities worldwide. That makes it a great choice for prospective students in search of a vibrant and diverse study environment.The institution has recently made great strides in its efforts to further international cooperation, in a bid to remain at the forefront of internationalization of the higher education sector.Earlier this year, Stockholm University's board voted to set aside 38 million kronor ($6 million) for increasing international research cooperation and recruiting overseas students. The cash will be made available in 2012 and 2013 but the internationalization investment, known as Stockholm University Academic Initiative, is already well underway.The investment will also finance visits from prominent guest lecturers, research trips, as well as ambassadorship activities, aimed at increasing connections between Stockholm University and other participating institutions.

The Taiwan-based Buddhist monastic order Fo Guang Shan has combined its four institutions of higher learning, located in three different countries, to establish Taiwan's first private inter-university system, reports Taiwan Today."Besides integrating resources available to the universities and facilitating the sharing of their academic research, this new system will help increase each school's international competitiveness," said Yung Chaur-shin, President of Fo Guang University.

Universities are raising their fees for home and European Union postgraduate students sharply, a survey suggests, prompting warnings about access to academia and other professions.The National Survey of UK Tuition Fees, for the coming 2011-12 academic year, indicates that rises in taught postgraduate fees for home and EU students outstrip increases for non-EU postgraduates and undergraduates.Based on data gathered from 147 UK higher education institutions, the fees survey shows that taught home/EU postgraduate fees range from £3,400 to £31,738.

Five international business schools are pooling resources to address some of the critical issues at the intersection of business and society. The five - the Tuck school at Dartmouth (US), Essec (France), Mannheim Business School (Germany), Fudan University (Shanghai) and Keio Business School (Tokyo) will work together on specific research topics and present the results at an annual conference.The Council on Business and Society, as the group is called, will hold its first conference in Paris towards the end of 2012 and the topic will be corporate governance and leadership.

Foreign universities are getting ready to grab a bigger slice of the education pie in China by firming up their existing partnerships and forging new alliances with Chinese educational institutions. Much of the optimism in Western academic institutions stems from China's strong economic growth, the increased spending power of its citizens and its growing demand for quality education.At the same time, several extraneous factors like the global financial crisis and economic weakness in the United States and Europe have also forced several of these venerable educational institutions to seek greener pastures in countries such as China and India to offset their flagging revenues.