- Japan: Internationalisation key to Abeducation
- US: Lower Enrolment Changing Colleges
- Norway: Record International Students
- China: NYU Shanghai Opens Door
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s landslide victory in last month’s general election has confirmed that plans to internationalise the country’s higher education system will go forward.Around £284 million (?43.2 billion) has been allocated toward initiatives in “five pillars” outlined by Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura in June including increasing inbound and outbound mobility, improving universities’ ranking status and boosting academic collaborations.“Without strengthening universities, we cannot expect further growth, so all Japanese universities should transform themselves into world universities,” said Shimomura. Doubling the amount of Japanese students overseas to 120,000 is central to plans, boosted by greater financial support from the government.
With news that a rebounding economy is resulting in declining college enrollment, administrators, professors and students could be in for some changes at colleges and universities.What might higher education look like with smaller student bodies? Here are six things that could change:
Universities in Norway’s Bergen and Stavanger experience a huge increase in students from abroad this academic year.As the autumn higher education season kicks off this week, Bergen reports ten per cent more than last year, whilst almost one in ten are from abroad in Stavanger.German students make up the highest proportion of foreign students in Bergen. Other nationalities listed include France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Australia, and Japan, reports Bergensavisen (BA). “This means that the University of Bergen is recognised internationally and that it maintains a high standard,” Minister of Labour Anniken Huitfeldt said to BA. Roughly 800 are foreign students there, 4,000 Norwegian
New York University Shanghai, the first Sino-American higher-education institute, officially started operation on Sunday with the arrival of almost 300 students, as American universities are trying to find new ways to access millions of Chinese students. Among the students, 150 are from China and 145 from other parts of the world, including 100 from the US. Faculty members, with quite a few from New York and the US, also arrived at the temporary campus of NYU Shanghai. The new permanent campus – still under construction in Shanghai’s financial center in Pudong – is expected to be operational by next year.
