NEWS

UK Launches New Scheme to Make Student Visas Easier for Grads

good news if you’re an international student seeking a graduate degree in the UK: your visa process is about to get easier.

Last month, the UK government announced an extension of a pilot student visa plan to 23 more universities, which allows non-EU students six months to find a job upon graduation.

The plan was introduced last year as a pilot in Oxford, Bath, Cambridge, and Imperial College London.

In the plan’s second year, the pilot will streamline the process for international students looking to earn a master’s degree in 13 months or less in the UK.

Another perk? Students want to switch to a work visa and will have greater support.

Universities that partake in the plan are required to check eligibility—and students need to submit fewer documents than in the current process.

The additional universities to benefit this year include two in Scotland, two in Wales, one in Northern Ireland, and several others across the UK.

International students will apply for Tier 4 visas.

Applicants who do not meet immigration rules will be refused.

In an article on the BBC, UK Immigration Minister Brandon Lewis said, “I am delighted to announce the expansion of this pilot which is part of our ongoing activity to ensure that our world-leading institutions remain highly competitive.”

He added, “The UK continues to be the second most popular destination for international students and the number coming to study at our universities has increased by 24 percent since 2010.” 

The universities in Scotland welcomed the opportunity.  The University of Edinburgh’s senior vice principal, Charlie Jeffery said, “Almost three thousand of our international students stand to benefit from our participation in the scheme, which will enable them to either further their study or pursue their entrepreneurial ideas, and add to the UK’s pool of high-value graduate talent.”

The University of Glasgow seconded Scotland’s inclusion in the pilot. Principal and vice-chancellor Prof Sir Anton Muscatelli said, “Glasgow is a global institution ranked within the top 100 universities in the world and it is virtually important that international students continue to feel both welcome and valued when coming to our campus.”

Legacy draws Australian universities back to Western civilisation

Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, funded by £1.7 billion bequest, to fund degree courses in several institutions

Two significant trends have shaped much of the scholarship in Australian universities in recent years: one is a drive to build an appreciation of the country’s Aboriginal heritage, and another is the influence of Chinese research funding and student flows.

A new centre, funded by an A$3 billion (£1.7 billion) bequest from healthcare magnate Paul Ramsay, aims to take degree courses in a very different direction.

The Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, which has already won the backing of former prime ministers Tony Abbott and John Howard, aims to fund bachelor’s degrees in Western civilisation at universities in New South Wales and Canberra.

The initiative is likely to start in two or three institutions, with the centre having announced that it is in discussions with the Australian National University.

The centre plans to offer up to 30 scholarships for undergraduates studying the Western civilisation course and combined degrees at each institution, with a series of postgraduate scholarships supporting international exchanges also planned.

So what would a degree in Western civilisation cover? Simon Haines, the centre’s director and a former professor of English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said that the course would “include some philosophy, some literature, some history and some art and architecture in the various recognisable periods of western civilisation”.

“So there would be a Greco-Roman [element], a late classical to medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Romanticism, 19th century and 20th century. And within each of those periods, there would be key texts within the different disciplines that students would look at,” Professor Haines said.

“Among poets, you would be starting with probably Homer and a Greek tragedian, then Virgil and Horace and probably some Chaucer, Dante, Montaigne, Shakespeare and Cervantes – whatever you could fit into the time parameters you’ve got.”

UCL launches 'eugenics' probe after it emerges academic held controversial conference for three years on campus

A senior academic is being investigated by University College London after he was found to have hosted an annual conference in which speakers debated ideas on eugenics and intelligence.

Since 2015, Dr James Thompson has overseen the London Conference on Intelligence, which has seen a researcher who has previously advocated child rape online speak on campus on three occasions.

The university was last night attempting to establish how the honorary lecturer was able to host the event without informing senior officials, who were unaware of which speakers would be attending.

Sam Gyimah replaces Jo Johnson as universities minister

Former prisons minister takes on brief as predecessor moved to Department for Transport

Sam Gyimah has replaced Jo Johnson as universities minister in the UK’s Cabinet reshuffle.

Mr Gyimah, the former prisons minister, took on the role spanning the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy after Mr Johnson was appointed transport minister and minister for London.

On Twitter, Mr Johnson said that universities were “our greatest asset [and the] best thing about this country”. He said he was proud of his reforms – especially the teaching excellence framework and the Higher Education and Research Act – and that Mr Gyimah would be a “brilliant” successor.

Mr Gyimah, the MP for East Surrey since 2010, is no stranger to the DfE, having served as a parliamentary under-secretary of state in the department between 2015 and 2016. He supported Remain in the run-up to the referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU.

A former Goldman Sachs investment banker, Mr Gyimah read politics, philosophy and economics at the University of Oxford, where he was president of the Oxford Union.

Dame Janet Beer, president of Universities UK and vice-chancellor of the University of Liverpool, said that she looked forward to working with Mr Gyimah "to develop policy that supports universities to maximise their positive impact on the economy, society and students".

"The promised review of tertiary education funding in England and establishing the new regulatory framework and Office for Students will likely be top of the new minister's in-tray," Dame Janet said.

"Improving post-study work visas for international students, supporting universities’ role in promoting social mobility and securing our long-term participation in the European programmes Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+ should also be priorities.”

Mr Johnson, who was appointed universities and science minister after the Conservatives’ general election victory, leaves his position with a number of policy achievements, including pushing through England’s first higher education legislation since 2010. The Higher Education and Research Act, which received parliamentary approval in April 2017, almost one year after its first reading, created a new super-regulator for higher education, the Office for Students.

The OfS came into effect on 1 January and is tasked with driving up choice and competition in the English sector, but its inception has been overshadowed by the decision to appoint controversial journalist Toby Young as one of its 15 board members. Mr Young quit the board on 9 January after a heated parliamentary debate on his appointment, in which Mr Johnson robustly defended the Spectator columnist’s role at the regulator.

The TEF was Mr Johnson’s other signature policy, creating a sector-wide audit of teaching standards and student outcomes, the first results of which were published last summer.

Mr Johnson had adopted a more confrontational approach in recent months, sparking a national debate in June when he criticised the pay awards of Russell Group vice-chancellors. He also became increasingly critical of the “no-platforming” of controversial speakers and what he saw as restrictions on freedom of speech on campus.

Mr Gyimah’s selection follows the appointment of Damian Hinds, formerly a work and pensions minister, as education secretary. Greg Clark has remained in post as business secretary.

Brazilian admission quotas ‘successful but not enough alone’

Comparison of national test results data shows pupils admitted to university under racial quotas graduate with the same scores on average as non-quota peers

The first nationwide analysis of Brazil’s university admissions quotas has found strong levels of achievement among some students admitted under the scheme but warns that attainment gaps cannot be closed by affirmative action alone.

National admission quotas were first introduced in the South American country in 1999 and, since 2012, all of Brazil’s public and private higher education institutions have been required to reservehalf their places for public school students. Racial quotas also apply, with the minimum requirements varying by state.

An analysis published in The Economic Journal, conducted by Claudia Bueno Rocha-Vidigal of the University of Minnesota, examined 465,872 test scores to judge the impact of quotas on attainment in Brazil’s universities. The test in question was the National Examination of Student Performance, which is taken by all students in the first and final years of their degrees.

Controlling for a range of characteristics including gender, income and type of university, Dr Rocha-Vidigal finds that there is “no statistically significant difference” in academic performance between students admitted under the racial quota and under non-quota admission arrangements.

Scores for students admitted under the low-income quota were 14 per cent lower, on average, than those achieved by non-quota students with similar characteristics. When the analysis focused on public universities, which are typically of higher quality than Brazil’s private institutions, the gap was 25 per cent.

However, Dr Rocha-Vidigal notes that students admitted under the low-income quota typically entered university with lower scores on their admissions exams.

“In essence, both types of quotas are beneficial as they provide disadvantaged students with college education they would not usually have,” Dr Rocha-Vidigal told Times Higher Education.

Michigan Students Count Way to a College A

University of Michigan professors award many more A's under new grading system.

At the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, about 8,000 students have earned their ordinary course grades in an unusual way. They start out the semester with a zero, but each has the opportunity to earn an A by racking up points. The professor determines how many points each assignment or test is worth, and there's various ways to get to an A. If students botch an assignment, they can try something else. Each student can track his or her point tally online and see options for earning more points.

Since developing this system, named "GradeCraft," five years ago with two colleagues, education professor Barry Fishman gleefully admits he's awarding many more A's. He estimates that he's doling out A's to 80 percent of his students now compared with 50 percent or 60 percent beforehand. But, he claims, his students are working a lot harder.

"Colleagues say I'm not rigorous enough," said Fishman. "I think rigor should be about how challenging the material is, not how hard it is to achieve a certain outcome."

If poor can't get into university, then no one must get in - Julius Malema

If the poor can't get into universities, then no one must get in, says Malema

Polokwane – The lack of infrastructure to implement President Jacob Zuma's fee-free education plan should not be a barrier used to deny the poor access to higher education, EFF leader Julius Malema said on Monday.

Speaking live on Limpopo's Energy FM breakfast show on Monday, Malema warned that denying the poor access to education would be a declaration that all universities' gates be locked. Malema said that universities' lack of capacity to accommodate thousands of aspiring students was "none of our business".

"If you cannot take the poor into the university because of infrastructure... no one must go," said Malema.

Zuma made the announcement for fee-free education on December 16, just hours before the start of the ANC's elective conference.

He announced that students from households who had a joint income less than R350 000 per annum would receive government grants and not loans.

Students being taken for 'fools'

"Government will now introduce fully subsidised free higher education and training for poor and working-class South African undergraduate students, starting in 2018 with students in their first year of study at our public universities," Zuma said in a statement at the time.

Zuma's announcement was at odds with the Heher Commission into the Feasibility of Fee-Free Higher Education and Training, which found that South Africa currently does not have the capacity for free tertiary education for all students.

Malema accused Zuma of taking aspiring students for "fools" by making the announcement in December, after registration had already closed.

Malema demanded that universities re-open their doors so that disadvantaged students can gain access to education.

"You are going to re-open registration," he said.

"Don't tell me that there is no infrastructure, it's not my problem. How do you announce free education while knowing that you don't have infrastructure? "Lack of infrastructure should never stop our people from registering at the universities," said Malema.

He argued that Zuma's announcement was a good opportunity for a majority of impoverished families.

Free education 'non-negotiable'

Asked whether he foresaw any problems with filling universities beyond capacity, Malema said that eventuality would force government to act.

"It's a nice problem to have. Why do we avoid a nice problem? Let's have more students, then [it] will force government to build more infrastructure much quicker."

He also insisted that free education was non-negotiable, as it was the ammunition needed to fight white monopoly capital. According to Malema, it was only through education that cheap labour and high dependency on grants would be eliminated.

Thousands of aspiring students are currently queuing at institutions of higher learning, including in Limpopo's University of Venda and University of Limpopo.

Malema said if the students were told to apply online instead, the EFF would deploy a mobile information and communication technology centre to help them enrol.

However, some universities, including the University of Cape Town, the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Johannesburg, have already announced that they will not be accepting any walk-in applications during the registration period, saying their application processes can be completed online.

Keith Burnett to retire as University of Sheffield v-c

Physicist will step down 'in coming months', once successor is appointed

Sir Keith Burnett is to retire from his post as vice-chancellor of the University of Sheffield, after more than a decade in the role.

Sir Keith will leave his post "in the coming months", once the university council has appointed his successor.

In a statement, Sir Keith said he had been “truly honoured” to have led Sheffield since 2007.

“During that time, I have met many inspirational staff, students and alumni around the world, and I am proud to have represented them here in the UK and overseas,” he said.

“There could be no greater privilege than to help talented young people in our own locality and right across the globe to achieve their own educational potential and to see our scholars do real good across the world.

“As we enter this period of transition, I am now looking forward to helping secure the opportunities we have begun to develop and to prepare to hand over the responsibility of leadership to whoever is chosen to be the next vice-chancellor.”

Sir Keith was formerly head of the division of maths and physical sciences at the University of Oxford, having worked as a physicist in the US and at Imperial College London earlier in his career.

At Sheffield, he has been a powerful campaigner for internationalisation of higher education, focusing on the role of international students in particular.

Tony Pedder, chair of Sheffield's council, said that the university had "grown in standing as a centre of global scholarship committed to making a difference in our own region and around the world" under Sir Keith's leadership.

“In pursuit of our agreed strategy, Sir Keith has led a focus on the development of international partnerships, which bring opportunities to our students and staff, as well as economic benefits to our region," he said.

"Both in the UK and globally, we are known as a university which speaks fearlessly for the value of international scholarship to do good, willing to work with industry and government in progressive ways and yet still one true to our founding mission of public education."

National demands ‘force universities away from local communities’

Scholars argue swelling targets for teaching and research are making it harder for universities to have a regional impact

Governments across the world are preventing universities from rejuvenating their local economies and communities by forcing them to perform against national research and teaching targets, scholars have warned.

Particularly in the aftermath of the shock votes for Brexit and Donald Trump in 2016, universities in cities from Baltimore to Sheffield have been keen to show that they are getting outside their campuses and helping those who have been “left behind”.

But central government policies demanding international research “excellence”, low student dropout rates and a focus on subjects of national importance mean that a regional focus is being “crowded out” by ever more pressing demands from above, according to an analysis by researchers from across Europe.

One of the authors, Paul Benneworth, a senior researcher at the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, said that, despite a long history of serving regional needs, universities from the 1980s onwards have increasingly had to deliver against national targets in a “Faustian pact” to secure the funds they need.

“Regional has come to be seen as second class, and the national has become associated with ‘excellence’” in teaching and research, he said. At the same time, global rankings have ramped up the pressure to overlook local needs in favour of international benchmarks, he added.

Universities had now internalised these ideas and priorities, he continued. Scholars doing research with their local region “carry the whiff of suspicion” that they are not up to an international standard and, in one university in Sweden, Dr Benneworth discovered that researchers would “cringe” at the prospect of doing research funded by local hospitals. Such an approach was “a disaster not just for society, but also for the universities”.

Political scientists, for example, had only belatedly started writing about “fake news” and distrust long present in their communities because international journals had until recently not been interested in the subject, he argued.

Graduate School Might Help You Avoid Alzheimer’s

A new study from Cambridge University suggests that education may hinder the development and progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Currently, about 47 million Americans show some evidence of susceptibility to the disease—experts suggest that this will double by 2060.

The study focuses on the buildup of “plaques and tangles” of misshapen proteins in brain cells, which lead to their gradual death.

While the causes are largely unknown and attempt s to treat it have been disappointing at best, the new research suggests that the amount of education a person has can help stave off its effects.

In an article in Psych Central, Professor Hugh Markus said, “For example, many studies have shown that the more years spent in full-time education, the lower the risk of Alzheimer’s. But it is difficult to unravel whether this is an effect of education improving brain function, or whether it’s the case that people who are more educated tend to come from more wealthy backgrounds and therefore have a reduction in other risk factors that cause Alzheimer’s disease.”

He wanted to figure out which factors contribute specifically. He looked at an individual’s DBA and compared genes associated with environmental risk factors, like smoking, and compared them to those genes also present with Alzheimer’s. If a gene has an association with both, then the risk factor is likely to cause the disease.

What did he find? He found a strong association between the genes that predict higher educational attainment and a low risk of Alzheimer’s.

First author Dr. Susanna Larsson said, “This provides further strong evidence that education is associated with a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease. It suggests that improving education could have a significant effect on reducing the number of people who suffer from this devastating disease.”

She and the other scientists concluded that for every year of education, the odds of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis later in life drop 11 percent. They think that the complex thinking creates “cognitive reserves” that ward off dementia.