To sign these agreements, the Rector of the UNA, Dr. Francis de Lanoy, and the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the UNA, Mr. Wilfred Flocker, traveled to Havana. The agreements were signed on Monday, May 13, 2013. At the signing of the cooperation agreement with the Universidad de La Habana the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Mr Norbert Braakhuis, was present.

In Havana there were in depth discussions conducted between the rectors and professors n order to come to concrete implementation of the cooperation on short term. The agreement allows for the exchange of students and teachers, professors for supervising PhD students and research, joint research and exchange of study. In the framework of activating its Faculty of Medicine, the UNA delegation also held exploratory talks with Cuban authorities for Cuban technical and scientific support for this faculty. The UNA wants with the activation of its faculty, support the medical education in Curaçao and where possible, diversify.

The new building of the Embassy of Netherlands in Cuba was also inaugurated on Monday, May 13, 2013. To the Rector of the UNA was the honor, in connection with the signing of cooperation agreements, to hold a speech and cut the ribbon together with the Director-General for Political Affairs, Dr. Charles J. G. van Oosterom.

The working visit to Cuba can be called a success for sure. The UNA is confident that there will be a strong collaboration with local universities actually bear fruit.

The British University in Dubai (BUiD) marked the occasion of its 10th anniversary with a splendid celebration. The day began with a meeting for the Council members at the office of the BUiD Chancellor, H.H. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum.

His Highness thanked the Council members for the outstanding effort in supporting BUiD’s growth over the past 10 years. Recognition trophies were presented to current and original, Council members and advisors by the Chancellor in appreciation.

His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum said: “BUiD’s contribution to the knowledge – based society in Dubai in the last 10 years has been remarkable. It gives me great pride and satisfaction to witness the progress and success of BUiD with each class of masters and now doctors graduates year after year.”

The British University in Dubai began by offering master’s programmes in Education initially, then it steadily added new programmes in Engineering and Information Technology and Management programmes, and it now boasts of 12 masters programs, in addition to post graduate diploma programmes. Furthermore, BUiD started offering its first Doctorate of Education in 2010, and in 2012 PhD in Project Management was offered.

BUiD has most recently obtained accreditation for PhD in Architecture and Sustainable Built Environment, and is now in the process of obtaining approvals from Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research for PhD in Computer Science. It is worth noting that about 500 students have graduated from BUiD to date.

This year 2013, will be a landmark year for the University as it will witness the first accredited Doctorate of Education graduates for both BUiD and the UAE in general.

The British University in Dubai will remain true to its mission statement, to become the premier institution in the UAE in research -based higher education. Within this context of rapid expansion and progress BUiD aims to become the number one institution in promoting and developing a high standard of education and open up new horizons in and for the UAE.

The celebration continued on the day with a luncheon hosted by BUiD at the University campus in Dubai International Academic City.

Prof. Abdullah Alshamsi, BUiD’s Vice Chancellor, welcoming the lunch guests, thanked BUiD’s friends for their valued support and he added: “BUiD is grateful for the continued support and patronage of H.H. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum and all current and former Council members. BUiD’s success is the result of hard work and dedication from these great people. Thanks to all of you, BUiD has become an important institution in UAE’s education landscape.”

Several of the Council members expressed their happiness and pride in the progress BUiD has achieved.

H.E. Mirza Al Sayegh , BUiD Council member, and Director, Office of HH Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, said on the occasion: “Please accept my warmest congratulations on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the British University in Dubai. It is a great honour for me to be a member of BUiD and to be associated with His Highness the Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor and Members of the Board. I would also like to thank those partners who stood by us from the beginning and have witnessed what the University has become today.”

May I take this opportunity of wishing the staff and students, continued success and prosperity in the coming years.”

Dr. Ahmed Saeed Bin Hezeem, BUiD Council member, and General Manager Dubai – Courts, commented: “BUiD started 10 years ago with distinguished academic associations which enabled it to be one of the top higher education institutions in the UAE, providing the local and regional labor market with graduates of Master’s and doctorate programmes.

Jennifer Bibbings, BUiD Council member, and partner at law firm Trowers and Hamlins, commented: “I am immensely proud to have been associated with BUiD since its inception, which involved a dedicated group of people determined to see its establishment through to reality. That reality is now a thriving institution of international quality with over 500 postgraduate students. I look forward to BUiD continuing to grow from strength to strength.”

David May BUiD Council member, and Managing Director at MKM Commercial Holdings LLC said: “I wish to congratulate BUID on the high standards that it has achieved and maintained, which in doing, has brought to the UAE a benchmark of achievement with a diversity of courses, giving Emirati Students unparalleled opportunities in attaining five star post graduate education including opportunities for research.

I wish BUID Chancellery ,Professors and all staff continued success in their pursuit of proven excellence together with their councils support for expansion into both undergraduate and post-graduate sectors of what is an exceptionally successful and noteworthy not-for-profit Institution “

Dr. Ayoub Mohammed Kazim BUiD Council member and Managing Director Dubai Knowledge Village & Dubai International Academic City: “I would like to congratulate BUID on its remarkable achievements over the last decade. The university has played a leading role in elevating the quality of higher education by working in partnership with leading specialized UK universities to offer research-based education in key modern disciplines. The educational project is contributing to the creation of a knowledge-based economy and the development of UAE nationals. It has been a privilege to be a Council member of the university for more than seven years and I wish them continued success.”

Dr. Abdalla Mohammed Al Amiri , BUiD Council member, said : “It’s been 10 years for BUiD with strong academic programmes and we are very proud we have a good number of graduates in the Masters and Doctorate level which makes the University stand out and it has proven itself as we are aware there are a lot of universities here in UAE coming from all around the world but this is first unique British University in Dubai”.

The lunch was attended by a wide group of representatives from the higher education sector and from government, business and semi- government organization many of which enjoy strategic partnerships and relations with BUiD.

Martin Prince, BUiD Registrar commented: “It is crystal clear – “wadheh” – that developing and shaping a local not-for-profit university concerned with scientific research and educational opportunities in all fields of knowledge is a long-term project. I think both BUiD and Dubai are fortunate to have the intellectual and social capital of strong UK-UAE relations as the foundation for our progress over the last ten years, and for the challenges of the coming years.”

BUiD is the first research-based postgraduate university in the region and it is licensed by the UAE Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and internationally the UK Education equivalency Agency (NARIC) acknowledge BUiD’s education qualifications, which are recognized as equivalent to British standards thanks to its association with UK-based universities including the University of Edinburgh, the University of Manchester, the University of Birmingham, Cardiff University, King’s College London, and the University of Reading.

The British University in Dubai as it marks the first successful decade of its establishment with pride looks forward to many decades of contributions, development and success, as a progressive social enterprise being a local not for profit university dedicated to successful development of the ambitious and talented people of Dubai.

University students who think they deserve the best marks are among those most likely to bomb out in exams, New Zealand research shows.

Growing evidence suggests younger generations have a rocketing sense of entitlement, leaving researchers curious as to how well people with excessive belief in their self-worth actually achieve.

University of Otago researchers tracked the progress of 300 marketing students and found bigger egos don’t necessarily produce better results.

Those with an exaggerated belief in what they deserve tended to do worse in their exams than those who took personal responsibility and were internally motivated for success, study leader Donna Anderson says.

These more ego-driven students were more likely to fail when they found the exam more difficult than expected, when compared with other students who also found the test surprisingly challenging.

This indicates that high expectations and extra stress don’t go well together.

It also supports the notion that students who are excessively entitled believe that other people are responsible for their success or failure, and so are less motivated to put in more effort when required, Dr Anderson says.

The results, published in the International Journal of Higher Education, are the first internationally to prove that so-called “excessive entitlement” interferes with actually achieving success in the face of the challenge of university study.

Psychology lecturer Jamin Halberstadt, who oversaw the study, says there is a growing body of evidence suggesting those in Generation Y tends to have an inflated sense of entitlement.

He says this is “highly problematic” in an education system that is becoming more user pays.

“When you pay for your degree it becomes more like a product you purchase and with that can come these expectations of what you deserve to get in return,” Professor Halberstadt told.

The study suggests students be taught personal responsibility alongside academic subjects. (The Australian)

In response to funding constraints, tighter student visa requirements and a rapidly globalising marketplace for higher education UK universities are increasingly looking overseas for expansion. 

When the UK Border Agency last year tightened controls on international students coming into Britain it prompted an increase in the number of UK institutions looking to establish overseas. The restriction on overseas students coming to the UK, particularly from India, has had a major impact on university revenues. In response universities are taking the approach that if the students cannot come to them; they must go to the students.

In research carried out by Pinsent Masons, 67% of surveyed universities said that Government policy on immigration and fees made them more likely to establish an overseas presence.

The internationalisation of higher education is not, of course, a new phenomenon – 80% of universities surveyed already have an international presence – but the pace of internationalisation is accelerating, driven in most cases by the change in Government policy.

The most popular method of international collaboration is currently the use of joint or dual degrees, with 57% of those surveyed already providing these and 52% considering collaborating to reach overseas markets.

But of growing popularity and importance is the use of joint ventures to operate overseas branches or campuses. Only 14% of universities surveyed currently are party to a joint venture but 48% are considering establishing one.

Joint ventures can offer a good balance for those seeking to take advantage of the opportunities international markets present. They avoid the major costs and regulatory burdens associated with a new, independently established campus whilst sending out a very clear signal that the university is serious about a particular market and its student population and offering those students access to a highly prized UK university experience.

UK immigration policies do not offer the only explanation for this growing trend. Another major reason why universities are investing so much time and energy in international expansion is because the market for higher education teaching and research is becoming increasingly international and increasingly competitive. If a university cannot offer the same geographical scale, scope and opportunity as leading UK and international rivals then it may not attract and retain the best people and funding.

If done right, internationalisation can increase student numbers, improve the student experience and the quality of education, and can help organisations to expand their size and the range of learning opportunities they offer. But done badly, the same process can tarnish a university’s reputation both abroad and at home and can leave it with major problems and sizeable bills. Indeed, Pinsent Masons’ survey revealed that reputational damage is the risk that universities worry most about. The wrong tie-up can have terrible consequences for an institution’s name, something which is clearly disastrous in a sector where brand is so important.

Universities are as worried about quality assurance as they are about reputation, and of course the two are linked. However, only a quarter of universities are worried about risks to intellectual property although our experience is that universities should be alive to the protections needed before making their information available in other jurisdictions.

When choosing where to expand to, the Pinsent Masons survey revealed that, unsurprisingly, universities are focussing on where the greatest demand is – namely countries with an expanding middle class and a relative shortage of higher education places.

This is why universities are focusing on China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Brazil and the Middle East. Of those surveyed, 80% of universities told us that they were targeting China.

More surprising is the presence of the USA, an already mature higher education market, on the priority lists of over half of universities.

While the most important factor in choosing a destination by far was expanding demand for higher education, the next biggest influencing factor was personal relationships. The importance of these traditional drivers for university action cannot be overestimated and universities should work hard to encourage the development of these relationships in growth markets.

By Andrew Marszal 

Students at newer universities spend significantly longer in lectures and seminars while those at traditional institutions are left to their own devices, new figures suggest. 

An average course at a post-1992 university comprises 26 per cent lectures and seminars, as a proportion of time spent on study, compared with just 21 per cent at older institutions, information from the Telegraph’s University Course Finder reveals.

The figures, which include 130 universities across the United Kingdom, indicate that leading research-intensive universities including the Russell Group do not offer the same amount of teaching hours as some less renowned institutions.

It comes as a separate study this week found that the amount of lecture and tutorial time in universities has barely changed over the last six years despite a nine-fold hike in annual tuition fees.

The study – carried out by Which? and the Higher Education Policy Institute – found that students are receiving just 20 minutes more teaching each week in the current academic year compared with 2005/6 when courses cost just £1,000.

However information from the Telegraph’s University Course Finder – an interactive tool enabling students to search and compare degree courses across the country – indicates that traditional institutions are failing to offer the same amount of teaching as former polytechnics and other recent institutions.

Instead, more study time at traditional institutions consists of “guided independent study”.

It shows that 24 of the top 30 universities – and nine of the top 10 – ranked by teaching hours were post-1992 universities. In comparison, just 8 of the bottom 30 universities recieved their university status after that date.

The figures may indicate a more vocational focus at many newer univerisities, in which students are provided with lengthy timetabled hours each week.

The highest ranked universities were Arts University Bournemouth (founded 2012), which focuses on “practical learning, as opposed to theoretical work”, and Swansea Metropolitan (founded 2008), which boasts a dedicated Applied Design and Engineering faculty.

By contrast, many of the more arts and humanities-focussed universities see students largely more to their own devices – for example courses at Royal Holloway, which include a wide range of language and arts BA degrees, comprise just 16 per cent teaching by study time on average.

Universities renowned for their research including Oxford and Cambridge – despite their world-renowned tutorial systems – also scored poorly, with just 19 per cent and 18 per cent respectively spent in lectures or seminars.

But Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK, the vice-chancellors’ group, said it was “misleading to make a crude assumption that time spent in lectures and seminars can be equated with university course quality”.

The University Course Finder uses information from the Government’s new Key Information Sets (KIS) database, which provides the ‘Average of course spent in scheduled learning and teaching activities’ by course. (The Telegraph)

Major universities have been urged to enroll more students from rural areas in a major effort to promote equality in education.

Meanwhile, educational analysts urged the government to launch long-term policies to improve the education level of rural students. The State Council released a statement promising the government will offer more opportunities for higher education to hard-working students in rural areas.

The government decided to increase the quota of students from least-developed areas attending key universities to 30,000 this year, exceeding its original target of 10,000, the statement said. The additional students should mostly come from central and western regions, where colleges are limited and competition for places is fierce, according to the statement.

To solve the education inequality problem, China announced that 10,000 places in prestigious universities would be open to students in high-poverty regions every year.

An official in charge of recruiting students at China Agricultural University, who identified himself only as Zhou, said his university already leaned toward the central and western areas, giving more opportunities to students from the likes of Henan and Sichuan provinces.

“The university will surely continue to see a rising number of students from less-developed areas this year with the country’s ambitious recruitment target,” he said, without providing a specific number.

“Most majors in the universities open to students under the recruitment plan are related to agricultural sciences such as animal medicine and plant production, which will be very useful to local development if they go back to work in their hometowns.”

Chu Zhaohui, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences, said the proportion of students from China’s rural areas attending key universities is rather low.

“This unfair situation is partly rooted in big differences in basic education between rural and urban regions,” he said.

For instance, he said, China needs to strengthen its input on teaching staff, who are in seriously short supply in rural areas.

Tan Zheng, a teacher in Southwest Guizhou province’s Qianxi county, recalled that two of his students received offers from Guizhou University through the program.

“Both were doing really well but didn’t get ideal results in the college entrance examination due to too much pressure,” he said.

Tan believes the program will provide a second chance for those who didn’t do well in the examination. “It’s important for rural students because they study really hard at school.”

An official from the testing service bureau in Taibai county, Shaanxi province, who did not want to be identified, said 45 students in the county applied for the recruitment plan this year, a slight decrease from 2012.

“All the students who applied for the plan last year failed to meet the entrance requirements for those famous universities, which partly caused a fall in applications this year,” he said.

Li Chang’an, a public policy professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said less-developed areas with fewer education resources, will receive more benefits due to the policy.

“But for long-term development, the country should give more supportive policies to upgrade education resources in less-developed regions, such as building more top-class universities,” he said.

“When the country can solve the distribution problem of educational resources one day, the equality in education will be easier to realize,” he said.

French MPs urged parliament to strike down or heavily amend a bill that would allow universities in France to increase the use of English in classrooms, amid fiery debate over the best way to elevate the country’s standing in international academia.

Several intellectuals and the prestigious Académie Française, which is charged with safeguarding the French language, have in recent days called on the government to reject a law that supporters say will help attract more foreign students to French institutions of higher learning.

The bill says some university-level classes in France could be taught in English when they were part of an accord with a foreign or international institution, or if they had financial backing from the European Union.

Daniel Fasquelle, an MP with the main opposition UMP party who opposes the bill, highlighted France’s “waning influence” and told parliament he feared the new law would accelerate “the complete loss of control in certain technical and scientific fields.”

Claude Hagège, a lecturer at the prestigious Collège de France, chastised it as a “self-destructive impulse” and “suicidal project.”

But the bill, authored by Higher Education Minister Geneviève Fioraso, a Socialist, has also found detractors within her own camp. Socialist MP Pouria Amirshahi is leading a group of around 40 lawmakers who have already declared themselves against the measure.

“This bill opens the door to a terrible standardisation of the planet,” Amirshahi, who represents French citizens living in North Africa told FRANCE 24, adding that it was “the worst kind of humiliation to French speakers.”

The implications and eventual application of the law were the subjects of long debates on Tuesday at the National Assembly, with a vote expected on May 22. 

Attracting the world’s brightest students

Fioraso, who was once an English and Economy teacher, has argued that France could no longer prohibit English in universities as the country sought to compete for the world’s brightest students, many who come from the English-speaking world.

“India has one billion inhabitants, including 60 million computer scientists, but we only count 3,000 Indian students [in French universities],” Fioraso recently told a group of students. “We look ridiculous.”

The minister has received the support of some of France’s most distinguished scientists, like Nobel laureates Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Serge Haroche. In a May 8 opinion piece in the Le Monde newspaper they and others argued that the law “promotes the position of France in the world by increasing the country’s attractiveness.”

Others say the law is important to level the standard of education among all French university students. Current legislation restricts most university-level classes to French, but in many business schools and other eminent graduate-level universities classes in English already make up one-quarter to one-third of students’ course load.

However, MP Amirshahi doubted the law would help attract more international students, as some experts claim. “Higher education in France already enjoys considerable strengths, like low costs and its focus on culture… France has no calling to become a destination for English-language learning.”

The collaboration between the CISI and the School of Economics and Finance at Queen Mary will allow its students to graduate with the option to complete the CISI’s Masters in Wealth Management in parallel with the university’s prestigious Masters degrees. The agreement also means that Queen Mary will finance students’ CISI membership applications.

Ruth Martin, CISI Managing Director, said: “We are delighted to be partnering with Queen Mary on this project which, in its first phase, will enable students to obtain the CISI’s highest level professional qualification as part of a challenging and high quality programme. This partnership between a Chartered professional body and a higher education institution is an excellent opportunity for students to bridge the gap between academia and the work place and will provide them with an important competitive edge in the jobs market.”

Professor George Kapetanios, Head of Queen Mary’s School of Economics and Finance, said: “We are extremely pleased to start this valuable collaboration with CISI. Being part of this exciting partnership enhances Queen Mary’s strategy of becoming a research leader in the area of economics and finance and also helps us provide excellent preparation to our students for their professional life.”

In young people, blood vessels appear to be able to compensate for the effects of obesity. But after middle age, this adaptability is lost, and arteries become progressively stiffer as body fat rises – potentially increasing the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

The researchers suggest that the harmful effects of body fat may be related to the total number of years that a person is overweight in adulthood. Further research is needed to find out when the effects of obesity lead to irreversible damage to the heart and arteries, they said.

Obesity is known to be a major risk factor for heart disease, but the reasons for this are not fully understood.

Researchers at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Clinical Sciences Centre at Imperial College London scanned 200 volunteers to measure the speed of blood flow in the aorta, the biggest artery in the body. Blood travels more quickly in stiff vessels than in healthy elastic vessels, so this allowed them to work out how stiff the walls of the aorta were using an MRI scanner.

In young adults, those with more body fat had less stiff arteries. However, after the age of 50 increasing body fat was associated with stiffer arteries in both men and women.

Body fat percentage, which can be estimated by passing a small electric current through the body, was more closely linked with artery stiffness than body mass index, which is based just on weight and height. Men are on average about 21 per cent fat and women 31 per cent fat.

The research was funded by the MRC, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, and the British Heart Foundation, and published in the journal Hypertension.

Dr Declan O’Regan, who led the study, said: “The effects of having more fat seem to be different depending on your age. It looks like young people may be able to adapt to excess body fat, but by middle age the cumulative exposure to years of obesity may start to cause permanent damage to the arteries. One implication is that the potential beneficial effects of weight loss may depend on your age and how long you have been overweight. This is something we plan to study further.

“We don’t know for sure how body fat makes arteries stiffer, but we do know that certain metabolic products in the blood may progressively damage the elastic fibres in our blood vessels. Understanding these processes might help us to prevent the harmful effects of obesity.”

The initiative, which is being awarded the money from the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s Catalyst Fund, is part of a multimillion pound investment from the government in innovation projects designed to boost the economy.

The ‘Manufacturing Institute’ aims to create over 600 jobs in the region’s high value, low carbon manufacturing sector by developing a unique engineering education and research environment which will stimulate Unipart’s supply chain and train a skilled new manufacturing workforce.

Unipart’s manufacturing site in Coventry will form the base for the institute, where new undergraduate, postgraduate and low carbon R&D programmes will create a ‘faculty on the factory floor’, and where students will be connected directly to the latest technology on the manufacturing front line.

Coventry University’s recently-opened Engineering and Computing Building is also set to provide a home to many of the teaching and research activities of the new institute.

The project will support the ambition of the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) for 5,000 new or upskilled engineers by 2015, as well as increases in the numbers of SMEs active in research and development in the area.

Vice-chancellor Professor Madeleine Atkins of Coventry University said: “Close-knit collaboration between universities and businesses is critical in promoting innovation and supporting the UK’s economic recovery, so we’re delighted to be forging this partnership with Unipart which will create an unprecedented ‘live’ industry learning environment to attract more young engineers and upskill current workforces.

“We will also be developing cutting edge research and development programmes between the University and Unipart to exploit the expertise of both partners and to roadmap future technologies. Our aim is to make the new Institute a paradigm for how the higher education sector can work successfully with business in the UK.”

Managing director of Unipart Eberspächer, Andy Davis, said: “Unipart Manufacturing enjoys a close working relationship with Coventry University as we share many of the same passions, including increasing the number and calibre of engineers and associated skills in the Coventry and Warwickshire area, as well as researching and developing low carbon products and processes. This partnership is therefore a key element of our own growth profile in high value manufacturing.

“This exciting project gives us the opportunity to support Coventry University in the development of new and innovative ways to train the engineers of the future, giving them real, industry-relevant projects and experience in a live manufacturing environment.”

Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, said: “Universities and colleges are vital to the UK’s economy. This extra £50 million will harness the potential for growth across the regions, focus on our world-class industrial sectors, and create a skilled workforce for the future. It will support cutting-edge innovation and research projects and keep us ahead in the global race.”