Hedda Blog

The Fiji government recently approved the formation of the Higher Education Advisory Commission, an independent advisory board for the Minister of Education. The Commission will be responsible for regulating higher education in Fiji through an accreditation and approval process. The Minister of Education, Netani Sukanaivalu said, “The establishment or recognition of a university in Fiji, a non-university post-secondary tertiary education institution, an overseas university, and an overseas post-secondary education tertiary institution, will be done in accordance with the criteria and standards set out and approved by the Higher Education Commission."

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According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, due to the increase of unemployment (for master degree holders) in China, the government will limit the growth of graduate school enrollment to 5 per cent this year. This follows an undergraduate enrollment cap last year. The vice minister of education, Wu Qidi, "Advised universities to pay more attention to educational quality than quantity."

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According to the Yomiuri Shinbun Japanese newspaper, the education ministry will allow university presidents to change their academic calendar to synchronize with the U.S. & European academic years. This was a recommendation from the Government's Education Rebuilidng Council, a council formed to reform public education. Currently, universities in Japan start their academic year in April and end in March causing many challenges for foreign faculty and students who want to work or study in Japan. This change will go into affect April 2008.

Posted by Hedda blog administrator at 09:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A committee of students and staff at the University of Oslo have selected the winners for the first hedda blog competition.
The Winning blog, "Once upon a time in Europe," was submitted by Kreangchai Rungfamai, a second year HEEM student, from Thailand.

There was a tie for second place:
Muhammad Adnan Mughul, a second year HEEM student, from Pakistan, "A Journey of a Newlywed Couple in Europe!"

Jacquiline Kiyemba from Uganda, a 2007 HEEM graduate, submitted "Memoirs of the Bridge."

Watch out for the next HEEM student blog competition in January!

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The University Network of the European Capitals of Culture (UNeECC) will hold its first Annual Conference in Sibiu, Romania hosted by the Lucian Blaga University, one of Romania's distinguished universities, October 25-26, 2007. The Conference will thus be held in a 2007 European Capital of Culture, where a city and its university are in the process of running a European Capital of Culture programme.

The central theme of this year's UNeECC Conference will be 'Town and Gown'. A variety of presentations about the European Capital of Culture programme from the point of view of the universities and Institutes of Higher Education, the relationship between the city and its universities and Institutes of Higher Education, the benefits for the city and Local community of being a European Capital of Culture will be presented.

The University Network of the European Capitals of Culture (UNEECC), an international non-profit association, was founded in Pécs Hungary in December 2006, by 40 founding members. The creation of UNeECC originates from the idea that it would be useful for Universities and establishments of Higher Education based in European
Capitals of Culture to use this well known and prestigious European institution to stimulate new forms of academic and educational institutional collaboration.

The conference tracks are:

* The importance of the European Capital of Culture movement: Place
branding, local culture vs. European vocation

* The meaning of cultural politics: How does being a ECC affect
local cultural traditions? Why does a city want to be a ECC in the first
place? Why is it good for a university to be located in a ECC town?

* The relationship between local traditions and European culture:
How can a city/region with its local identity define/re-invent itself as a
European Capital of Culture?

* The geography of European Capitals of Culture: Are ECCs European
cultural 'capitals'?

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The Banff Strategic Leaders Global Summit on Graduate Education was the first global meeting focused on graduate education. 27 participants representing over 1,280 graduate institutions from the Australian government, the Association of Chinese Graduate Schools, the European University Association, the Canadian province of Alberta, and the U.S. Council of Graduate Schools convened in Banff, Canada. At the end of the gathering, the participants produced nine guiding principles for graduate education, named the Banff Principles. The purpose of these principles are to shape “future collective and collaborative work to advance and improve graduate education.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported,
Noting that “graduate education is in transition globally,” participants agreed to “promote the quality of graduate programs,” “clarify and strengthen the role of the master’s degree,” and “establish an inclusive global platform for discussion of best practices in graduate education.”

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Despite recent reform initiatives in the German system of higher education, Germany's federal statistics office recently reported that there has been a significant decrease in the number of professors at German universities from 1995-2005. According to the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers, 663 faculty positions in the linguistics and cultural studies fields have been left vacant over the 10-year period, resulting in a 10 per cent decrease. Yet, the most extreme decline of professors was in the humanities fields; classical philology and education decreased the number of professors by approximately 35 per cent over this 10-year period. Law, economics, social sciences and art history departments were the only fields of study to see an increase in the number of professors. The average student to teacher ratio is now 60 to 1.


According to DW-World.DE, "Improvement in the quality of our higher education system and study conditions isn't possible without a noticeable change in the proportion of 60 students per lecturer, which cannot compete internationally," DHV president Bernhard Kempen, a professor of law at the University of Cologne, said in a press statement.

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