Int. J. Engng Ed. Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 163±167, 1999 0949-149X/91 $3.00+0.00 Printed in Great Britain. # 1999 TEMPUS Publications.

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United Kingdom/Israel Derby was favourable. The HEC decision followed a THES report last month that Derby lowered Israel critical of Derby University standards entry requirements to ®ll places. The reputation of British universities in the global Derby's application, submitted under tough new market suffered a blow when Israel's higher edu- laws designed to tighten regulation of overseas cation regulatory authority recently accused providers, was blocked last month when the Israeli institutions of compromising standards to make HEC inspectors found that it breached `several' `as much money as possible'. aspects of the law. The HEC council rejected Nehemia Levtzion, head of planning and funding Derby's action plan and put the University on at the Israeli Higher Education Council, delivered probation. It has until mid-October to prove that a damning criticism of the quality controls applied it has met `a long list' of obligations. Its license by British institutions running extension opera- application will be reconsidered in November. tions in Israel. Professor Levtzion said that insti- Professor Levtzion said: `We suspect that Derby tutions in Israel have already begun plans to does not enforce the same regulations in Israel as abandon their formal partnerships with British they do at home. There is a long list of obligations universities and that some had been told not to they have to meet before we will give them a bother applying for a licence to offer degrees in the license.' He said that Derby must ensure that its country. Professor Levtzion said: `I think that extension is `the long arm of the University of because British universities try to make as much Derby', with an identical curriculum, syllabus and money as possible, they will compromise on stan- exam system. dards. Israeli institutions are dropping British Derby said it would continue to collaborate with patronage and tutelage and would rather become the HEC and looks forward to a close and effective an institution in their own right. Maybe quality working relationship. will have something to do with it.' Extension activity in Israel, usually franchised Professor Levtzion spoke out as the Israeli through local private colleges, has exploded in HEC blocked Derby University's application for recent years as British universities exploited a largely a licence to award degrees through partner Inter untapped market. The HEC estimates that 15,000 College. The UK's Quality Assurance Agency has Israeli students are sitting for degrees awarded reviewed all UK provision in Israel. Its report on through local colleges by overseas universities.

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Other British providersÐincluding Manchester also supply development funding. Such ®nancial University, Heriot-Watt, Coventry University, help can break the current restrictions on Sussex and the University of East AngliaÐawait additional income ventures by academic staff. decisions on their Israeli license applications.

USA Germany As technology makes inroads in higher education, Academic staff under pressure critics warn of approving virtual University German academic staff has been a target for `experiments' criticism for a long time. The president of the The ®rst-ever accreditation of a `virtual' institu- German Rectors Conference Klaus Landfried tion, Jones International University, has become a elected representative of all German institutions ¯ashpoint in the debate over accrediting standards of higher education is now mounting a frontal for on-line higher education. How could a for- attack. He demands the sacking of academics pro®t University, whose only classrooms are in who through their laziness neglect their research cyberspace, meet the same measures of quality as and teaching obligations. As reported some time traditional bricks-and-mortar institutions? ago similar truancies are observed in Italy. The The Jones decision in March was, to some outcry is particularly important because Prof. faculty members, a slap in the face of traditional Leibfried is a member of the commission of experts accrediting standards. And the questions it raises reviewing the status of academic `tenure' positions. have put accreditors and policy makers in a The rationale behind this demand is also justi®ed quandary: should they treat the new, electronic by the increasing number of faculty who use their institutions the same way they have treated University positions as a platform for external traditional colleges? Or should they develop new consultation jobsÐeven drawing in University approaches? If so, what should those approaches assistants who get direct remuneration for extra be? Does anyone understand on-line education jobs. Students are increasingly complaining about well enough to decide? teaching commitments and quality. More and Right now, accreditation experts say, the more private universities offering quality with questions far outnumber the answers. high fees are gaining popularity. A ®rst step in `This is going to be a serious issue for the next improving the quality of teaching and research ®ve years,' said David A. Longanecker, former would be the abolition of the civil service status Assistant Secretary for post-secondary education for professors. This, the absolutely safe job situa- at the US Department of Education, who is now tion contributes to the lax work ethic, which is a executive director of the Western Interstate phenomenon accompanying the birth-to-cradle Commission on Higher Education. `It's leading social and ®nancial security mentality initiated by us to a very different concept of quality assurance social democratic ideas of the 1960s in conjunction than we've traditionally hadÐbut I'm not sure with the ®nancial prosperity of the time. what that is.' Technology-intensive changes in higher educa- State help for inventors tion have convinced some administrators and Inventors who are members of academic institu- accreditorsÐMr Longanecker among themÐthat tions in Lower Saxony are getting more state new models for college and University accredita- support. A combined program by the departments tion are needed. `Our concern is that the old forms of economics and of higher education has been of accreditation really aren't appropriate for the initiated to support students and academic staff in new delivery mechanisms,' he says. the registration of patents and the marketing of But critics of the Jones accreditation see it as products invented at the universities. Funding of evidence that accrediting agencies have moved DM1 million has been allocated for the establish- away from reliable standards and are more willing ment of the Hanover Innovations company to to approve what Christine Maitland, higher- support all of Lower Saxony's academic institu- education coordinator for the National Education tions. Many patentable ideas remain in the drawers Association, says `are really experiments' in higher and are not followed up by academic inventors. A education. division of pro®ts of one third each is envisaged The director of the agency that accredited between the company, the University and the Jones International, however, thinks otherwise. inventors. Initially over 40 patents can be regis- The current controversy may be short-lived, says tered with the available funding. Such initiatives Steven D. Crow, executive director of the North are becoming increasingly common in German Central Association of Colleges and Schools. He academic institutions (previously reported from thinks that the Jones case is exceptionalÐthat TU Hamburg). Such ventures do support reticent other virtual institutions will operate as exten- and ®nancially restricted inventors. Moreover, it is sions of traditional colleges or universities, rather hoped that universities would pro®t ®nancially than as accredited, degree-granting institutions from these efforts. However, such efforts have a themselves. chance of success if the innovation companies can In fact, he says, traditional universities and Engineering Education World 165 for-pro®t businesses are likely partners in distance- lead this year's rankings of `multidisciplinary' education marriagesÐespecially if they involve institutions. (The magazine rates science and companies with large amounts of capital to invest technology institutes separately.) The strongest `in good curricular design and course work'. gains in 1999 were posted by South Korean institu- Already, accreditation of®cials say the sheer tions, with Seoul National University moving up number of colleges and universities offering some three notches to third place, and Yonsei University form of distance education is making their work making its ®rst appearance in the top 10. Other more challenging, as the programs attract a larger institutions in that leading group were in Australia, share of studentsÐand of accreditors' attention. Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. `It's the magnitude that is the issue,' says Sandra But part of the story of this year's rankings Elman, executive director of the Commission on concerns the universities that opted out of the Colleges of the Northwest Association of Schools surveyÐnot only in mainland China, where 19 and Colleges. `Distance education has been going institutions declined to participate, but also the on for years, but not to the degree, and not in all University of Tokyo, which was ranked No. 1 in kinds of institutions, that it is now.' each of the two preceding years. Among the regional agencies, North Central is In a letter to the Hong Kong-based magazine, by far `the most aggressive and open-minded about the University of Tokyo's new president, Hasumi distance learning,' says Michael P. Lambert, Shigehiko, argued that the education and research executive director of the Distance Education at his institution `cannot be compared with that of and Training Council, which accredits distance- other universities . . . Such characteristics are education programs. `I ®nd its attitude refresh- profoundly individual and extremely dif®cult to ing, somewhat different, more entrepreneurial.' quantify.' His position on the matter, he added, In conducting recent institutional evaluations, `will not waver as long as I am president'. including the one for Jones, North Central has Christopher Tremewan, a pro-vice-chancellor, or relied in part on guidelines for `good practices vice-president, at the University of Auckland, in in telecommunicated learning,' similar to those New Zealand, says Asiaweek is treading a thin line. developed by the Western accrediting agency, says `The magazine has to be careful that the inade- Mr Crow. quacy of its methodology doesn't drive more and The only unusual aspects of the Jones more universities away from the survey,' he says. accreditation, he says, were the procedures used Like other periodicals that publish similar rank- to review the curriculum and conduct interviewsÐ ingsÐincluding US News & World Report, many of which the evaluation team held on line. Maclean's in Canada, and Britain's Financial For about two years, members of the team TimesÐAsiaweek aims to measure the academic reviewed library resources, administration, and excellence of universities by quantifying their ®nancesÐ`the standard stuff,' he says. achievements. Mr Bacani says the magazine's Even so, educators who question the decision to role is in `objectifying the myths . . . substantiating accredit Jones say they suspect that the institu- or debunking the idea that such-and-such a tion received waivers on some requirementsÐa University is the best, simply because that's what suspicion that University of®cials deny. `I can tell people have always claimed.' you right now, we didn't,' says Pamela S. Pease, When Asiaweek decided to publish a ranking of president of Jones International University, which universities in 1997, the task appeared to be is based in Englewood, Colo. straightforward enough. After all, other periodi- cals already had done it, and the magazine even had some previous experience of its ownÐseveral Asia years earlier, it had published a guide to 34 of Asia's leading higher-education institutions. While Asian universities rankings are controversial that survey included degree offerings and student It has been nearly 20 years since Cesar Bacani, a fees, it did not attempt to rank the institutions. But senior editor at Asiaweek magazine, graduated the challenge of developing the ranking system from the University of the Philippines. proved dauntingÐespecially in such a vast region Yet now hardly a working day passes without that accounts for more than half the world's him thinking of his alma mater. `I receive many population, spread out, for the purposes of the reminders on the subject,' he says dryly, `not all of survey, across 18 countries and territories. The them very happy-sounding.' survey also took in the South Paci®c nations of The University of the Philippines is one of the 79 Australia and New Zealand. universities to have been rankedÐat No. 32, not Geography, notes Mr Bacani, was only `the highly enough, in the view of some of Mr Bacani's most obvious' challenge. `In Asia, you also have correspondentsÐin the latest Asiaweek annual the cultural matters of saving face, of institutional survey of the `best' higher-education institutions and national prestige,' he says. `Remember that in Asia. Mr Bacani is in charge of the project, this was the ®rst time anything like this had been which is attracting increased attentionÐand tried in Asia.' For those and other reasons, he says, scrutiny. `when we began working on the ®rst survey, no one As in previous surveys, Japanese universities took it entirely seriously.' 166 Engineering Education World

In 1997, ®ve-page questionnaires were sent to more than 290,000. The annual `best universities' just 78 universities, requesting information on fees, issue is one of the year's biggest sellers for the student-teacher ratios, salary levels, and faculty magazine, which is published by Time Inc. quali®cations, and asking of®cials to evaluate the Evidence of the survey's attention-getting power reputations of other institutions being surveyed. can be found in almost any of the countries In the subsequent ranking of 50 institutions, no represented in the listings. Visitors to public distinction was made between multidisciplinary relations of®ces on campuses in Singapore and universities and science and technology institutes, Malaysia, for example, will typically be offered thus opening the magazine to accusations that it reprints of the magazine's rankings, complete with was comparing apples with oranges. the ¯attering institutional pro®les of the top This year's survey was based on an expanded universities. In Indonesia and South Korea, news- eight-page questionnaire, which included new paper editorials regularly cite the survey when they questions on subjects such as Internet access. It seek to celebrateÐor to chideÐtheir countries' was sent to 149 universities, 95 of which submitted higher-education standards. complete responses. Universities were judged in The survey's ubiquity has been made clear to ®ve categories: academic reputation, student University of®cials across the Asia-Paci®c region. selectivity, faculty resources, research output, and `It has acquired a very high credibility, not just ®nancial resources. As in the two earlier surveys, among academics but also students, who nowa- Mr Bacani developed the criteria, organised the days often come along to our overseas recruitment data, and, working with four research assistants of®ces clutching copies of the magazine,' says and the Asiaweek network of correspondents, Mr Fell, of the University of New South Wales. compiled the rankings. For the ®rst time, the In the end, though, Mr Bacani believes the most magazine this year ranked science and technol- important service his magazine's rankings may be ogy institutes separate from multidisciplinary providing is a `a wake-up call' to higher education, universities. and not just in Asia and the Paci®c. The expanded effort, however, has not satis®ed Asiaweek ranks the region's top universities as the concerns about the magazine's research. Even follows: of®cials at the National University of Singapore, which consistently has been ranked among the Multidisciplinary institutions top six institutions, have found aspects of Tohoku University (Japan) the methodology wanting. Hang Chang Chieh, Kyoto University (Japan) the University's deputy vice-chancellor, complains Seoul National University (South Korea) that he has `no idea' how Asiaweek could rate his University of Hong Kong institution 64th in terms of faculty resources after National Taiwan University it was in the top 10 in that category just one year National University of Singapore ago. Chinese University of Hong Kong `Universities do not change this quickly, which is University of New South Wales (Australia) why any assessment of this type needs to take a Yonsei University (South Korea) complex approach,' says Mr Hang. He believes the University of Melbourne (Australia) magazine might do better to conduct its surveys Science and technology institutions and compile its rankings less often, perhaps `once Korea Advanced Institute of Science and every ®ve years.' Technology (South Korea) For some institutions in Australia and New Pohang University of Science and Technology Zealand, another sticking point has been the (South Korea) survey's selectivity criterion, which accounts for a Tokyo Institute of Technology quarter of each institution's overall score. The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi selectivity score is based in part on the number Indian Institute of Technology, Madras of ®rst-year students accepted compared with the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay total number of applicants. In New Zealand, for Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur example, about 25 per cent of all ®rst-time students Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) enrolled at the country's seven national universities University of Science and Technology of China are over 21 years old, and by law they are National Taiwan University of Science and exempt from an entrance examination for general Technology degree programs; the institutions cannot deny them admission. `Selectivity simply cannot be compared across different jurisdictions,' says Hong Kong Mr. Tremewan, of the University of Auckland. Among readers, the rankings have only grown in Hong Kong critical of rankings popularity. Last month, in the week following the Although Asiaweek magazine has ranked two of appearance of this year's rankings in Asiaweek, the Hong Kong's six universities among the region's pages on the magazine's World-Wide-Web site very best, these days residents of the former British (http://www.asiaweek.com) devoted to the survey colony might question that ®nding. The reason, received a record number of `hits,' or viewingsÐ according to some analysts, is that education at all Engineering Education World 167 levelsinwhatisnowa`SpecialAdministrativeRegion' the largest University in Australia its ®rst base in of China is experiencing a crisis of con®dence. Britain. It will also give King's access to Monash's `Parents have lost con®dence in the system, and Australian and Malaysian campuses. Under the they will no longer pick a Hong Kong University deal, Monash will pay King's £70,000 a year over as the ®rst choice for their children,' said Kai Ming the next ten years. It will have its own centre located Cheng, pro-vice-chancellor, or vice-president, of in refurbished of®ces at King's campus on The the University of Hong Kong, at a recent inter- Strand, close to Australia House and the Australia national scholarly meeting. `Parents now prefer to Centre. King's College will join Monash's offshore send their children overseas for higher education, if campus in Kuala Lumpur as a major destination for at all possible.' Australia-based students who wish to complete part Compounding the problem, he said, was a new of their course overseas. King's also plans to reluctance on the part of Hong Kong businesses to arrange for its students to have ready access to hire people educated in the territory. `Our employ- Monash courses in Australia and Malaysia. ers have lost con®dence in our local graduates. The agreement will boost the capacity of two They now prefer graduates of overseas universities, strong institutions to recruit students and attract and even of mainland-Chinese universities.' research funding from countries on both sides of Mr Cheng made his comments last month at the the globe and enhance opportunities for academic annual meeting in Toronto of the Comparative collaboration. and International Education Society. The meeting Monash vice-chancellor David Robinson said the was sponsored by the Hong Kong Institute of new centre at King's would become the focus of the Education and the University of Toronto's University's activities in the United Kingdom and in Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and Europe. He said the centre would probably open its ®nal session was devoted to Canadian and next January and would be the size of a `small Hong Kong perspectives on higher education in campus' within ®ve years, with up to 3,000 students. the next century. As with the Malaysian campus, Professor Mr Cheng said the outlook in Hong Kong was Robinson said the London centre would be a key not promising because of the loss of faith in the component of the University's strategy to provide system, for which he had no explanation. `There is teaching, learning and research opportunities for its no simple answer,' he said. students and staff around the world. The centre will `This is de®nitely not because of the handover,' have its own of®ces, rooms and teaching facilities, said M. Cheng, when asked if the return of Hong while staff and students will receive preferential Kong to Chinese control nearly two years ago had access to the college's teaching facilities. precipitated the crisis in education. `Why this is Monash enrols 45,000 students on seven happening now, we are not sure, but it's not campuses. Under a newly released strategy for because of China.' the next 20 years, it plans to establish a global Many people in Hong Kong had feared a loss of network of campuses and `strategic alliances' to personal freedoms under Chinese rule, but analysts give it a signi®cant presence in Western and East- in the territory and elsewhere say China has largely ern Europe, Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, and kept its `hands-off' promise. What had not been South and North America. anticipated was that the territory's once-robust economy would stumble badly. The economic downturn has led the University Grants Committee, a local agency that distributes Israel government funds for higher education in Hong Kong, to call on institutions to do more with the Israel to pay for arab students' use of resources they have. But economics is not why the college-preparatory program territory's people feel education is in decline. Arab students at Israel's public universities will Mr. Cheng said he believed the loss of con®- now be able to study for four years for the price of dence in the system was caused in part by `a three, under a policy adopted last week by the mismatch between teachers trained in Western country's Council of Higher Education. The traditions and tradition-bound Chinese parents'. program is aimed at increasing the number of The teachers have lost con®dence in students, who Arab students at Israeli universities. About 6.5 are not able to cope with the curriculum. Two per cent of all students enrolled in the universities decades ago, he said, Hong Kong had `one of the are Arab, although the proportion of Arabs in the strongest education systems in Asia. Now, others overall population is three times that ®gure. in the region are stronger.' Because University studies require ¯uency in Hebrew, and because many of the high schools in Israel's Arab school system are considered to be of Australia/United Kingdom poor quality, many Arab students spend a year in a University `pre-academic program' before begin- Monash University expands into London ning undergraduate studies, which generally take King's College London and Monash University in three years. Under the new program, such students Melbourne have signed an agreement that will give will not have to pay fees for the extra year.