Engineering Education World News (vol.12 number 4)

M. S. WALD
Hamburger Educational Partnership, Berliner Tor 21, 20099 Hamburg, Germany

UK
		University of Lancaster cuts are typical in Europe
		University lecturer training is coming
		Women and computer science
Germany - the Netherlands - Israel
		Ways to economy oriented higher education
Germany
		Orientation in the job market increasingly independent of qualifications
Denmark
		New research support policy
Greece
		Fraud in Greek higher education
USA
		Worries about international competition for students
Australia
		Chinese student flood is curbed by government controls
Japan
		Aims to reform the educational system
Malaysia
		Educational system expansion

Financial crisis has become routine in European universities. Tuition fees and modalities for their introduction are being vehemently discussed rejected and reformulated. The University of Lancaster is a typical victim of measures to cut costs to cover its deficit of £5.8 million. It will have more than 250 jobs relinquished. Staff replacements are frozen, and the continuing education department is moving out of a historical building to settle on campus. A £9 million student residential complex is to be sold , the moment it is completed. Like other UK universities Lancaster is trying to recruit more paying foreign students to cover its deficit. Similar circumstances with analogous measures are common in other UK and German universities.

The British have a tradition in thinking about the way higher education should go. Commissions and reports are produced in a constant stream. Currently a commission headed by Sir Ron Dearing has been actively inquiring into higher education. One of the apparently unavoidable outcomes is that university teachers will be trained and accredited to teach. A concurrent debate is also going on-on whether a good teacher needs to do research or not. For which the arguments have gone on forever. The training of university lecturers for teaching is a hot topic as universities are reluctant to play in a general accreditation scheme for their lecturers. Naturally, they would not like an outside body to judge the quality of their staff. This much was made clear by the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals - CVCP. The CVCP want a national accreditation agency which will accredit the training courses for lecturers in their institutions. Other models are , an outside national training agency, and independent courses run by universities. Whichever model is adopted, it seems clear that in future lecturers will be trained in teaching skills.

A new study reveals hat women refrain from studying computer science because of poor job prospects and a lack of prestige. Gerda Siann Professor of gender studies at the university of Dundee has researched women and computer studies and comes to the conclusion that women are as capable as men in handling computers but are less likely to use them unless they find them helping them in their studies and work. They are less inclined to play games with them. The proportion of women students in computer studies incorporating business is 32 percent, with 40 per cent in computer studies with social sciences. This study is to be discussed at the women into engineering conference to be held at deMonfort University. For information contact: Rachel Lander, e-mail:wic@dmu.ac.uk

Germany - the Netherlands - Israel

In a recent meeting organized by the German Center for Higher Education international models on how to bring universities to be more adjusted to the economic realities were discussed. In the industrial countries university finances have come under scrutiny. Global budgets , giving the universities autonomy in the internal distribution of funding are new to Germany. For the professional colleges- the Fachhochschulen global budgets will depend on the number of graduates , the number of applicants, and the number of intermediate examinations. The flurry of spending at the end of the year, when all remaining unspent funds are used up by faculties, in order not to have a budget cut in the following year is going to be stopped. Another common practice-financial spending stops in the middle of the year enforces such spending sprees in time before the bans. In the Netherlands , global budgets have existed for some time. The allocations per engineering and science students is one third higher than for other faculties. Professors may be relieved of their jobs- with a financial settlement- impossible in Germany.

About 10 percent of the research funding is directly related to the number of doctoral dissertations. Funding - dependent on student numbers raises German objections as q output quality may be affected. An alternative financial model foe higher education is practiced in Israel where an intermediate body-between government and higher education is responsible for funding allocations. This Planning and Budget Committee. This board negotiates the budget for higher education with the government. It then allocates funding- strictly according to student numbers for education. For research funding is allocated according to quality of research and publications, external funding support as well as according to doctoral student numbers. The level of support through student fees is fixed at 20 percent. For higher education- funding is a matter of existing in between a public service organization and an enterprise, maximizing both contributions, whilst remaining a viable public service is the particular dilemma of this sector.

Germany

Unemployment of engineering graduates pushes their job perspectives away from the qualifications they obtained during their studies. This is coupled by an increasing dissatisfaction of engineering graduates with their courses. Even though engineers may be getting jobs, they are often either not what they were educated to do, or they do not provide working conditions they were hoping for. These observations were made by a survey of Fachhochschule graduates in Schleswig Holstein. Building and construction engineers profited from the boom in building construction in 1995 and obtained jobs easily. Mechanical and electrical engineering graduates looked for alternatives. These were additional studies- i.e. mechanical engineers getting certification as welding engineers, or in business studies. Six months after graduation - 60 percent of engineering graduates in these disciplines did have a job. Often the job was not exactly within their qualifications spectrum - i.e. computer oriented jobs were a common alternative for mechanical engineering graduates. Students complained of outdated qualifications - such as learning computer languages which were no longer used in industry. Other complaints were regarding specialist subjects taught by professors which were of no subsequent use for the students. A demand for expanding the curriculum into non-engineering communications subjects was common. These subjects are-personnel management, business studies and communication studies. Another study shows that enterprises will increasingly employ engineers in areas where they were employing other graduates previously. Many enterprises believe that such a development will contribute to a further downgrading of engineering positions in the future.

Denmark

The research and Technology minister Ms Hilden has uncovered new research support policies which intend to bring together technical and non technical disciplines, as well as create a North European axis of universities reaching from North Germany to Sweden. Several strategic areas are to be supported. There will be an emphasis on interdisciplinary studies and public-private cooperative ventures. A strategy for environment and energy will incorporate the social sciences in sustainable energy developments looking at health hazardous substances. Student and staff mobilities will be encouraged. The efforts will be supported by an electronic national research library.

Greece

Examination fraud and student placement manipulations were uncovered in the Greek university system. With too few student places available in Greek universities students register in a foreign university. They are then eligible to return to a Greek university after two years providing that they can prove ill-health. Doctors have been issuing certificates of ill-health to such students , being paid an average of $10,000 per certificate. In a case of examination fraud, at Aristotle University in Saloniki, lecturers were paid to provide answers to examinations and students papers were coded to identify for those who participated in otherwise anonymous examinations. Public prosecution canceled 45 out of 700 examination papers for such alleged fraud.

USA

With the student recruitment efforts by the United Kingdom and Australia (see above), the United States is experiencing a flattening off of the number of international students coming to the country. Figures released by the Institute of International education show a small rise in foreign student numbers last year of 0.3 percent to 463,000. This trend is concurrent with the slimming down of United States Information Agency services in overseas countries. These services, which provide information and support for students intending to come to the USA have been reduced by one third. Many of the agency's locations have been closed down , especially in countries where it is believed that information about the States is available freely anyhow. (for example - the long established Amerika Haus in Hamburg, Germany has been closed). This alarm is justified in view of the economic benefits which foreign students bring. It is estimated that these students bring $7.5 billion into the country each year, which represents one of the largest service sector incomes. Even though there are new students coming in from the reformed countries in Eastern Europe, the droop in Asian students is drastic. It is also eventually going to influence faculty composition in technical areas, where a significant proportion is from overseas countries.

Australia

The substantial efforts by Australian higher education to market their services being checked by the Australian government. Australia institutions, technical foremost have been aggressively selling their education in South east Asia and China. This effort meant the establishment branch institutions in Malaysia and Indonesia. The number of Chinese mainland students desiring to study in Australia is controlled by government visa regulations.Last year only 1,500 visas were issued in Beijing for Chinese students. Whereas 40,000 Chinese students are studying in the USA, Australia has only 2,000. With the large demand being stopped by authorities, Australian universities are establishing links with Chinese universities. An active university in this service is the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. These institutions are also establishing English language teaching facilities on the mainland in order to ease language tests when students apply for a visa. It is estimated that 300,000 Chinese students will be studying abroad in the next 10 years. Australia, which too 40,000 Chinese students after the Tiananmen Square massacre is reluctant to see these Chinese students remain in Australia.

Japan

Contrary to popular belief, the Japanese have been aware for some time that their higher education may not provide the kind of graduates the country needs. Prime minister Hashimoto has announced a reform of the country's education system. More flexibility in the choice of degree courses, more creative and less drill work are the goals. Japanese industry is not getting the kind of graduates it needs to advance technology in a competitive world. There are inefficient graduation standards , industry recruits and then trains graduates from a select few universities. Students are not involved in their studies, and earlier specialization is thought to increase motivation of future students. More original thinking skills are needed for the economy of the next century. The phase of disciplined and recipe knowledge based school system is now to succeeded with innovative and creative students who are allowed to make choices. The reform is also to touch the much criticized university entrance examinations that encourage memorization learning by students.

Malaysia

Malaysia, as an emerging major technological products provider setting up plans to expand its educational system. The plans are formulated in a National higher Education Council chaired by the Minister for Education Datuk Najib Tun Abdul Razak. The country will need nearly 60,000 engineers by the year 2000. Present projected output is near 20,000. The plans are to set up criteria for intake into higher education, as well as the regulations for the establishment of campuses by foreign universities in Malaysia. Substantial efforts in this direction are in progress by Australian universities (see above).