South Africa can’t afford to see its universities pitch over the precipice

For the past two years the actions of government and protesting students have slowly started squeezing South Africa’s universities into a shadow of their former selves.

In his book “As by Fire” prominent educationalist Jonathan Jansen argues that South Africa is witnessing the end of its universities. He explains that this doesn’t mean the doors will close. Registration will not stop. The day to day business of universities will continue. But, he warns, the excellence evidenced by the rankings of South African universities will slowly dip into oblivion.

South Africa is the only country in Africa with ten universities that regularly feature on at least one world ranking list. These ten are institutions that South Africans can be hugely proud of and whose achievements could serve as models for expanding excellence to other institutions.

The decline in government funding to South African universities has meant that institutions have had to look elsewhere to cover costs. This has inevitably included increasing student tuition. In turn, this contributed to student protests in 2015 and 2016. In some instances those protests shut down institutions – suspending their normal functioning for days or weeks at a time.

Shut downs have knock-on effects, some of them long lasting. If universities have to close their doors terms are delayed. Students don’t graduate and don’t pay fees. Universities cannot balance their budgets and infrastructure is not maintained. Staff salaries can’t be paid and academics have to work two or three jobs to survive.

The impact is also felt when it comes to funding. Funding agencies have deadlines and if research outputs are not met grants get cancelled. If grants are cancelled there is less money for equipment. Post graduate student bursaries are cancelled. Post graduate students drop out and go elsewhere and even if new research grants are awarded the students are no longer available to do the research. Then the research outputs cannot be met – again.

Universities elsewhere – in Nigeria, Kenya and, as Jansen himself writes, Zimbabwe and Uganda – stand as a stark warning. South Africa must act to halt the decline and save its universities’ well deserved global reputation of excellence.

Sustaining universities

Who cares about universities’ world rankings? Isn’t this just an elitist system in which South Africa cannot afford to compete given its declining economy?

No, it’s not. Excellence in academia is a self perpetuating cycle. Break this cycle and universities dive into a spiral of decline.

Excellent students complete their degrees in the minimum time. They drive excellence in an institution’s research programmes. They then become top quality post graduate students who in turn become top class academics and a university’s research machine benefits. These graduates have the ability and the interest needed to engage with a university’s research activities. Because they excel academically, they are often keen to get to grips with more advanced research.

What I’ve found is that getting students involved early on in research often inspires them to study further, equipping them to be future lecturers and professors. Many research programmes – including my own and that of the faculty in which I work – offer opportunities for undergraduate students to work in their laboratories. In this way students can participate in an institutions’ research activities.

In turn, increased research output benefits universities financially.

Keeping a steady flow of research output will ensure that South Africa can continue to boast some of the world’s top ranked research programmes. The universities of Pretoria, the Witwatersrand and Cape Town are considered world leaders in mycology, ornithology, anthropology and area studies. The research programmes that earned them these rankings depend on access to top quality postgraduate students. These bright young minds drive world class research – and they come from all over the world.

My own programme has attracted students from Australia, China, Iran, Kenya, Korea, Nigeria, Vietnam and Zimbabwe who are now studying with me. I have in the past also had the privilege of supervising students from Cameroon, Colombia, Chile, Ethiopia, Germany, Lesotho, Namibia, Oman, Switzerland, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zambia. This internationally rich group of students benefits my research and is hugely stimulating to the South Africa students in the programme.

Preventing brain drain

The common thread here is engaging students and providing them with the facilities and environment that will keep them in South Africa. Brain drain is a reality. The country needs more doctors to staff its hospitals and engineers to build its power stations. Losing skilled professionals is bad for the economy.

In addition, university students the world over have changed the direction of business, governments and politics because they are a country’s intellectual leaders. When the strongest of these students choose not to study at universities in their homeland the country is robbed of its next generation of leaders.

Universities must maintain their excellence – or watch their best and brightest minds choosing to study and perhaps settle elsewhere.

The role of universities is to educate. They need to produce research and attract brilliant young thinkers who will, ultimately, contribute to a stronger economy and society. South Africa’s universities have long fulfilled these roles. The country cannot afford to see its tertiary education sector pitch over the precipice.

Higher education cuts will be felt in the classroom, not the lab

In a recent Productivity Commission report, the bias of universities in favour of research over teaching was exposed.

The proposed higher education reform that would have seen A$380m cut from university funding was rejected by the Senate, but the word is that Education Minister Simon Birmingham has return to the bunker to develop a new strategy. The most likely scenario is that vice-chancellors will need to cut costs, and we know where the axe will fall. Teaching-focused academics will be the hardest hit, and the cuts will be felt in the classroom rather than the research laboratory.

What is a teaching-focused academic?

The term teaching-focused academic has been used to include teaching-only academics, teaching-focused academics and teaching-intensive academics. The number of teaching-focused academics in Australia has increased from 755 in 2005 to 3696 in 2016. The number of teaching-focused academics is also increasing in the UK and Canada.

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Read more: Performance funding is not the way to improve university teaching

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In Australia, the rise of the teaching-focused academic is credited to universities seeking to increase their Excellence in Research (ERA) rankings. Poor performing teaching-research academics tend to become teaching-focused academics to maintain ERA rankings.

Teaching-focused academics are often considered to be “lesser” academics (Academicus minor). While evidence of research success is measured by volume (number of publications and research income), evidence of teaching scholarship is less quantifiable.

For example, 84% of academics consider teaching is important, but 29% believe teaching is rewarded in promotion. The data support their perception, with less than 10% of teaching-only academics above senior lecturer level, while more than 30% of teaching-research academics are above senior lecturer level.

Even when a teaching-focused academic is recognised for teaching excellence, it may not be acknowledged by their peers, or they may be subject to ridicule from other academics.

“Rank and sack” method shows bias against teaching-focused academics

Teaching-focused academics are more likely to be made redundant. Vice-chancellors tend to use the “rank and sack” method to protect researchers. Academics are ranked on the basis of research volume, and those individuals below a certain threshold are sacked.

A twist to the “rank and sack” method is to give the academic the option to become teaching-focused. An attitude of “anyone can teach” prevails. The departure of teaching-focused academics is felt in the classroom. These are the academics who keep up-to-date with technology, current trends in assessment practices and curriculum development.

University recruitment is focused more on research performance than teaching performance, to the detriment of teaching. In Australia, permanent research-only academics outnumber teaching-only academics four to one. Teaching-focused academics are further marginalised by casual employment. 82% are casual employees.

Over the last decade there has been a significant increase in casual staff, primarily to support teaching. When a tenured position becomes available, an academic with a track record in research is often appointed rather than a teaching-focused and, most likely, casual academic.

In Canada, universities hiring a research academic with a proven record rather than a popular teacher for a tenured position led to a petition from students. The popular teacher’s contract was extended.

Not renewing casual contracts is an easy fix for a manager who needs to cut costs. It isn’t so easy on the academic who relies on the income. Recently, an academic who had worked as a casual academic in Sydney for 15 years and was passed over for tenured positions committed suicide.

Cultural bias against teaching-focused academics is national

At a national level, there is further evidence that teaching is not valued at universities. The Australian Research Council (ARC) distributes much of the category one research funding to universities. It started in 1946. In contrast, the Australian government’s teaching and learning body started as the Carrick Institute in 2006, and was renamed Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT). The OLT was shut down in June 2016. What would be the reaction to dissolving the ARC?

In 1992 Ruth Neumann, after interviewing heads of department and university executive, revealed a cultural bias against teaching-focused academics. Knowledge of the discipline was valued more than teaching skills. The following quotes are from her report:

academics involved in research were described as being: alert, enthusiastic, excited, keen, curious, fresh, and more alive.

the teaching of those academics not involved in research was described as: repetitive, dull, unstimulating, unexciting, dry, sterile and stagnant.

This cultural bias against teaching-focused academics may not be so explicit, but statistics regarding casualisation, poor promotion prospects, redundancy priorities and the attitude to teaching awards indicate that very little has changed. This bias still exists.

Given this, it is easy to predict the outcome of any cuts to university funding. Teaching-focused academics will be sacrificed. Casual contracts for teaching-focused academics won’t be renewed. Tenured teaching-focused academics will be made redundant. The teaching load of academics who don’t have time to do research will be increased. But ERA rankings won’t be affected and the lights will still burn bright in university research laboratories around the country.

Faces of Dreamers: Juan Vasquez, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine

This is one in a series of posts on individual Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as young children, many of whom are under threat of deportation following the Trump administration’s decision last month to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA.

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Juan Vasquez, who was brought to the United States illegally from El Salvador when he was nine years old, was in class at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine (UCSF) when he heard about the Trump administration’s decision to rescind DACA.

Vasquez, whose story is told by the San Francisco Chronicle, is one of an estimated 100 DACA recipients, often called Dreamers, who are enrolled in U.S. medical schools. While they are just a small fraction of about 800,000 Dreamers who have been granted DACA status, health industry experts say ending the program without a comparable alternative could exacerbate a long-standing imbalance between California’s health care workforce and the patients it serves, The Chronicle reports.

The story notes that “Vasquez is precisely the kind of physician-in-training that medical industry leaders say is critical to the profession’s ability to treat patients in the future: bilingual, and statistically more likely to work in poor, underserved communities, where the need for health care professionals is more pronounced. He is among a handful of DACA students at UCSF’s medical school.”

To read the full story, click here.

AANAPISIs: Ensuring Success for Asian American and Pacific Islander Students

This blog is part of a series highlighting the findings from Pulling Back the Curtain: Enrollment and Outcomes at Minority Serving Institutions.

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Higher education as a whole can learn valuable lessons from minority serving institutions (MSIs), especially when we reflect on how to help college students succeed. As many of us in education know, an ongoing chal­lenge for colleges and universities is creating learning environments that contribute to student achievement. While it is expected that institutions will work to help all of their students succeed, it is equally important that they have a depth of understanding of their student populations in order to provide tailored support for their success.

The Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) student population no exception. The AAPI population is one that requires considerable attention given its size and complexity. It is composed of over 48 ethnicities that are diverse in socioeconomic class, language, religion, educational attainment, and migration his­tory, among other attributes. AAPIs are also one of the fastest-growing minority groups in the United States, with a predicted population increase of 125 percent (to over 40.1 million) by 2060.

Given these increasing numbers and the complex, heterogeneous composition of the AAPI population, higher education institutions must have a deeper understanding of AAPI students and their needs. One such opportunity is to consider the role of Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs) and their contributions to the success of AAPI college students.

Findings from a recent ACE report provide a more complete picture of these contributions. Analyzing data from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), the authors found that the majority of students at public AANAPISIs attend through mixed enrollment, moving between full time and part time, while the majority of students at private four-year AANAPISIs enroll exclusively full time.

Across all sectors, exclusively full-time students (the cohort most similar to that used to calculate federal graduation rates) at AANAPISIs complete at higher rates than what the federal graduation rate shows, primarily because NSC data follow student movement across institutions and states. For example:

• The NSC total completion rate for exclusively full-time students at public four-year AANAPISIs was 87.9 percent, compared to the federal graduation rate of 66.2 percent.

• Exclusively full-time students at private four-year AANAPISIs had a completion rate of 93.2 percent, higher than that of the federal rate of 81.0 percent.

• At public two-year AANAPISIs, exclusively full-time students have a four-year completion rate of 42.6 percent, compared to the federal four-year completion rate of 27.9 percent.

A Closer Look at AAPI Students

AAPI students are often excluded within the larger national discussion on the needs of racial and eth­nic minorities in higher education. Among the many possible reasons for this exclu­sion is the common misperception that AAPIs are high achieving, a belief long known as the model minority myth. This misperception has grave consequences for AAPI college students. Student affairs professionals, for instance, may limit outreach efforts and services, such as tutoring or psychological services. We may also see this play out in federal or local grant and scholar­ship programs geared toward racial and ethnic minorities where AAPI students are not, for the most part, considered underrepresented. These students often are not afforded the opportunity to take advantage of these financial resources that might otherwise help defray the cost of their education.

Examining disaggregated data reveals why such trends are counterproductive. More specifically, dis­aggregated data provide a contextual backdrop and clearer understanding of the AAPI population. For example, Southeast Asian Americans (SEAAs) have one of the highest poverty rates among commu­nities of color, with a staggering 37.8 percent of Hmong families at or below the national poverty level. SEAAs also have one of the lowest educational attainment rates for those who earned a bachelor’s degree or higher. For example, 9.2 percent of Cambodians have earned a bachelor’s degree, compared to the national average of 25.9 percent.

In California, in particular, a high number of AAPIs are Limited English Proficient (LEP), meaning a limited knowledge in reading, speaking, writing, or understanding English. These are important data points given the role that poverty and English fluency play in educational attainment. Nationally, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders (NHPIs), another subgroup in the AAPI category, experience great educational disparities. This includes a high dropout rate in college; 50 percent of Native Hawaiians, 54 percent of Tongans, and 58 percent of Samoans enter college, but do not earn a degree.

Approximately 47 percent of AAPI students attend community colleges, which is contrary to a popular belief that the majority attend highly selective institutions. Additionally, in California, 65 percent of Cambodian and 61 percent of Filipino students took at least one pre-college level course in basic skills math, reading and English, compared to 56 percent of California community college students overall. Pre-college coursework is an important measure to pay attention to given that students enrolled in such courses are less likely to obtain an associate degree.

Studies conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles showed that AAPI experiences with campus climate parallel that of their black and Latino/a counterparts. For example, AAPI students were more likely to hear racially charged, negative and/or stereotypical comments from other students, staff or faculty compared to white students. Such experiences have been shown to negatively influence students’ sense of belonging, a condition critical to student success on any campus.

The Importance of Data

Collecting more precise data for AAPI students requires intentional effort and sustained commitment. Fortunately, we have some models to work from.

The National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education (CARE) and the Center for Minority Serving Institutions at the University of Pennsylvania have made great strides in the push to collect more precise AAPI and AANAPISI data and to critically analyze those data. In 2013, CARE and the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders initiated a data quality campaign called iCount, which urges institutions to collect and report more accurate data about specific AAPI ethnicities on local and national levels. Better data collection efforts and analysis can lead to more effective student services and thus student outcomes. Examination of such positive outcomes shows that work at funded AANAPISIs contributes to student success, namely through academic support, student services, opportunities for leadership and mentorship, and professional development.

Examples of AANAPISI Success

The official designation of the AANAPISI Title III program was instituted as part of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007. Although each AANAPISI that receives federal funding utilizes its grant according to its unique institutional context, the common goal is to address the needs of AAPI students, including through curricular, academic and student support services.

The gains achieved by institutions reveal positive educational outcomes for AAPI students. A leading study by Partnership for Equity in Education through Research (PEER) examined the positive influence of federal funding on three AANAPISI campuses, showing that investing in targeted institutional capacity-building efforts can lead to better student outcomes.

One such institution, De Anza College (CA), focused on Filipina/o, Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander students by implementing learning communities with the ultimate goals of assisting students to transition from remedial to college-level courses, and increasing transfer rates to four-year colleges and universities. Students in these learning communities were more likely to transition into and pass college-level English than nonparticipants. They were also more likely to earn an associate degree.

Another institution, South Seattle Community College, addressed its concern with low-income AAPI students not persisting after their first year on campus through creating learning communities that included college success courses that included time management, study skills, tutoring and mentoring. Students in these learning commu­nities successfully transitioned into college-level courses and were more likely to obtain an associate degree or certificate.

A final lesson from PEER was that higher education administrators and practitioners at AANAPISIs are wise to work collaboratively within their institutions. PEER showed that administrator, staff, and faculty collaboration within AANAPISIs through supplemental courses, counseling and mentoring led to more successful student outcomes, including higher rates of persistence and transfer to four-year institutions. Collaboration can also be more intentional across the AANAPISI community and may take the form of an AANAPISI support network between funded institutions.

Designation and Funding

On a policy level, several areas can be addressed to further support AANAPISIs in their efforts to serve their students. As suggested by CARE, it is critical that there be a concerted effort to urge AANAPISI designation for eligible institutions and encourage institutions to apply for funding. As of 2012, there were 153 institutions eligible for AANAPISI designation; however, 78 were designated, and only 21 had been funded due to budget appropriations for the AANAPISI program not meet­ing the need or demand for funding. While it is important that political constituents are aware of institutions that are funded, they should also encourage those that meet AANAPISI eligibility to apply, and those that have yet to apply for funding, to do so.

In encouraging institutions to apply for AANAPISI eligibility, it is important to note that institu­tions that meet more than one MSI designation can only apply for one federal grant program in a given year. For example, AANAPISIs that also meet the eligibility requirements for designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution must select which federal grant program they will apply for in any given year. Granting AANAPISIs that meet the eligibility requirements for other MSI designations to apply for both federally funded grants would provide institutions greater resources with which to better serve the needs of their students.

Finally, it is important for policymakers to provide opportunities for increased AANAPISI funding that will allow for sustainability and scalability and facilitate ways to forge partnerships with foundations that could provide additional funding to encourage effective practices. Working toward addressing these issues will lead to positive outcomes at large as it creates more con­ducive and successful learning environments for all students.

Politics in schools? Yes, if we want children to be active citizens

The rights of children have come under the spotlight in South Africa recently. Corporal punishment, which has been banned in the country’s schools since 1996, is now also illegal in the home.

This latest ruling was justified on the basis that children, like adults, have a right to be protected from assault. While the ruling itself has provoked some controversy, the idea of children having “protection rights” – the right to be protected from violent, abusive, cruel or exploitative treatment – has not.

“Participation rights”, by contrast, seem to be much more controversial. These, along with protection rights, are accorded to children in Article 12.1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Children are assured that they not only have a right to express their views on matters affecting them, but that these views will be given “due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child”.

Recently, a photograph was posted on Twitter that showed three boys holding up school shirts featuring a South African political party’s logo. The resulting outrage – fuelled by former UK cricketer Kevin Pietersen, who attended the school in question while growing up in South Africa – suggests that many are uncomfortable with allowing children their participation rights.

People have often questioned whether politics “should be allowed” in schools. The issue here is whether or not politics affects children. And the answer is yes. We want our children to flourish. To ensure that they do, we need to help them develop their sense of good and evil, justice and injustice. Understanding and engaging with politics is crucial to this development.

Politics and power

Politics is ultimately and essentially about power. Children are arguably one of the least powerful groups in society. Political scientist Jessica Kulynych has argued that society does not see children as political actors and as such, fails to include them in the public sphere. This prevents children from enjoying participation rights: they cannot express their views on matters affecting them.

Schools – the place where children spend so much of their time – have very entrenched power relations. Pupils are the least powerful and most vulnerable in these relationships. They spend much of their time listening to those who have power over them and so many decisions about students are taken without their input.

It’s a common complaint across Africa – and across the globe – that young citizens are particularly unengaged. Turnout is especially low during South African elections among young voters.

But how can we expect young voters to be politically involved if we prevent them from “being political” while they are in school? Schools could be the perfect space for children to learn about and engage with politics.

Talking about their book, The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education, Diana E. Hess and Paula McAvoy argue that being able to talk about politics is a skill that people need to learn. Schools seem the obvious place to learn this skill: they are not just there to teach students maths and science – they are surely meant to educate young people to become good citizens and contributors to their country.

Kids are political animals, too

The Greek philosopher Aristotle famously claimed that “man is a political animal”. His justification for this was two-fold; he said “It is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust” and also pointed out that we have the gift of speech.

These two capacities allow us form relationships with each other and through association (in families, clubs, societies, and indeed the state), we are able to experience what Aristotle called eudamonia – human flourishing.

There is no reason for children to be excluded from developing their abilities as “political animals”. If we keep them out of politics, we deprive them of their right to speak – even about issues that make us uncomfortable.

How should Australia respond to China’s influence in our universities?

The federal government is concerned about Chinese influence in Australia, particularly on universities. While we don’t know exactly how deep this influence runs, we do know quite a bit.

Financially, many Australian universities depend on international students from mainland China. It was recently suggested that 16% of the University of Sydney’s revenue comes from these students. Over the past two decades, this rapid change has made universities look and feel different.

From a financial perspective, it didn’t really matter if universities changed; the more enrolments the better. From a social perspective, university administrators suggested that the presence of Chinese students would create mutually beneficial cross-cultural communication and exchange. Academics initially thought that while it might take a while, Chinese students would “adjust” to Australia.

More recently, academics have come to a more pessimistic conclusion: Chinese students in Australia inhabit a “parallel society”, in which they engage with Australian society only rarely.

The combination of these factors — Australia’s financial dependence on China, the increasing Chinese presence in Australia, the disconnection of mainland Chinese students from Australian society and culture, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) increasing global assertiveness — has begun to create conflict.

What are the conflicts?

When university students and teachers discuss contentious issues relating to China, they often face criticism from PRC students. The criticism can be harsh, well-organised, and heavily publicised. Cases at the University of Newcastle, Monash University, and the Australian National University illustrate the scope of the problem.

Nothing about student protest is inherently undesirable. In fact, it is a manifestation of the academic freedom that university students deserve – and would not have in China. But what constitutes a “contentious issue”, and who is orchestrating this criticism? Examining the issues disputed makes two things clear: first, that the issues Chinese students deem “contentious” are exactly the same issues that the Chinese government deems “contentious”, particularly those relating to China’s territorial integrity and history. Second, that the
organisations orchestrating the response to these issues, particularly the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA), are funded by and work closely with Chinese state bodies such as consulates.

This runs in parallel with a steady intensification of “ideological education” in the PRC, together with attempts to shape how China is seen by the world through Confucius Institutes, the CSSA, and other “soft power” bodies. At last week’s Party Congress, President Xi Jinping stated China’s priority is to become a globally “stronger” nation.

So, should universities and the Australian government draw the line at some point? Should they ban or restrict contentious organisations? And if these groups cause friction on campus, how should university students and administrators respond?

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Read more: Telling Chinese students to conform won’t fix cross-cultural issues

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Three main issues in question

Is this really the Chinese government’s fault?

In some ways, yes. The chain of command is clear: from the PRC government to consulates to student organisations to students. On the other hand, students often don’t need to be encouraged to support Chinese interests. Teachers hear spontaneous outbursts of nationalism in class all the time.

Students in the CSSA are being manipulated by the PRC government, but they are individuals too. Universities should set a high standard for suppressing individual views. Supporting one government’s policies does not meet that standard.

Who is really being harmed here?

Broadly speaking, local students and academics are hearing views they don’t want to hear, often inaccurate, and frequently phrased in an inflammatory way. Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Student politics is fundamentally confrontational. If local students and academics disagree, we can speak up, as
several students have done.

The more severe harms are to Chinese-background students,
whether or not they are from the PRC. Chinese culture is not the same as PRC culture. It is complex and diverse, and Chinese students have wide-ranging views on many topics. As a teacher of Chinese students, I am not particularly concerned when my students support the PRC. They have many reasons to do so. But I am extremely concerned when students tell me that they are afraid to criticise China, even in essays, because they are worried that their fellow Chinese students will attack them.

When dissenting Chinese students are ostracised by student organisations, this harms the dissenting students, who lose the valuable cultural connections and support that student organisations provide. It also harms the majority of PRC students, who never get the opportunity to debate ideas suppressed in the PRC media, and who accept too frequently that the views of the Communist Party of China (CPC) are correct and normal.

What right do universities have to intervene in student organisations?

As a rule, academic freedom should apply to everyone in the university. While it is reasonable to suggest that it should be restricted in some circumstances (for example, to restrict fascist organisations), the trend towards censoriousness on campus is also concerning. Free speech should be paramount, even when the CSSA says things people don’t like. Banning or restricting the CSSA, for example, would have no effect on the PRC but would irritate and harm many Chinese students.

It should not end there. Universities can actively facilitate diversity in debate. Responsible universities would prioritise funding to the setup of Chinese student groups without political alignment and to facilitating debate about contentious topics relating to China. They would also give prominent dissenters, like Wu Lebao, special support.

What do we need to do?

Australian universities have sometimes been naive about China. Chinese students have been admitted in large numbers without concern for their academic skills, taught without concern for their social and cultural needs, and little has been done to help them adapt to Australia and its culture. Under these circumstances, it’s not surprising that they feel disconnected from universities and turn to student organisations that speak their language and understand their culture.

Universities need to have the courage to do two contrasting things: they should both acknowledge that the opinions of the CSSA are opinions that many Chinese students hold, and provide avenues for alternative points of view. This would allow students to hear debates about China and reflect on China critically — something they cannot do within Chinese borders. This would not create a new band of anti-PRC revolutionaries, but it would do something rather rare at Australian universities — treat Chinese students as humans with the capacity for rational thought.

Physics is taught badly because teachers struggle with basic concepts

Students will suffer if Australia and New Zealand change tertiary fee agreement

New Zealand’s new Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has asserted that the current tuition fee arrangements for Australian students in New Zealand will end if the policy does not remain reciprocal. In a debate during the general election campaign, Adern stated:

If [Australia] lock us out of tertiary education, we will lock them out of it here.

This “locking out” does not refer to a formal barrier – such as a law impeding enrolments – but would be introduced by creating negative financial consequences for students. In other words, Australians interested in studying on the other side of the ditch could potentially face quadrupling in tuition fees charged by New Zealand education providers.

She recently reiterated that position in an interview, stating movement from the Australian government would have flow-on effects in New Zealand.

Turnbull government has to make the first move

Ardern has emphasised that she is not planning to take the first step. Instead, Australians’ eligibility to subsidised tertiary education in New Zealand will depend on the actions of the Turnbull government, which in May this year announced its Higher Education Reform Package.

The proposed tertiary funding reform suggests a division of students into three tiers: citizens (tier one), permanent residents and NZ special category visa holders (tier two), and international students (tier three). Under the new policy, students in all tiers would see their tuition fee increase. However, the proposed changes would have the largest impact on tier two, including most New Zealanders, who would lose their entitlement to Australian government subsidies (Commonwealth Grant Scheme).

This means that from January 2018 onwards, all new tier two students are required to pay full domestic fees. At the moment, the average public share of course costs in Australia is around 58%. Removing this (i.e. the CGS subsidy) gives an indication of the financial impact of this policy. For instance, in a four-year degree program, NZ students would face average annual fee increases of A$8,000-9,000 compared to the approximately A$2,000-3,600 annual increases proposed for domestic students. The increase is higher in courses attracting more government subsidies, such as medicine, where students would be locked out of more than A$130,000 government funding during the six-year programme.

As a way of compensating for the massive fee increase, the new scheme offers to extend the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) to New Zealanders and other tier two students, which would provide access to funding to cover the tuition fee costs. This would improve the existing situation, where most NZ students are not able to access the loan scheme in Australia and have to pay upfront fees.

How would Australian students in NZ be effected?

The financial consequences for Australian students in New Zealand would depend on the final policy details. No information has been released yet. In New Zealand the government subsidy covers around 70% of course fees (on average) which Australian students might be asked to pay out of their own pockets.

There is also a possibility that Australian students could be charged international tuition fees, fees for most of them would quadruple. A Bachelor of Arts degree could go up from about NZ$5,800 (at two universities in Auckland), to at about NZ$28,000 a year. This is approximately what international students pay.

In addition, the existing rules in New Zealand provide other entitlements for Australian students. This includes access to student allowances and loans (with lesser restrictions than applied to New Zealanders in Australia) that could be at risk.

The proposed changes would have a potential impact on at around 15,000 students (around 4,600 Australian and 12,000 NZ students), making up at around 1% of all domestic enrolments in both countries.

Though these changes would involve a fairly small group of people, the impacts on the individuals affected would be significant. It would limit the study opportunities for Australians and New Zealanders interested in studying outside their country of citizenship.

Currently, the tertiary funding plan is on hold. The Turnbull Government’s reforms were rejected by the Senate. However, if the policy was enacted and implemented as planned starting in January 2018, this would bring one aspect of the existing ANZAC relationship to an end.

Squabble over students is part of a bigger problem

Even in the late 1980s/early 1990s, with significant tuition fee reforms for both Australia and New Zealand, this entitlement to equal access to government tuition fee subsidies was not removed.

The tuition fee policy change is only a minor element in the wider context of reciprocity arrangements between Australia and New Zealand. The rights of New Zealanders living in Australia have been eroded significantly since 2001. So far, New Zealand has continued to provide fairly generous rights to Australians without retaliation.

In the larger context, the one-sided decision making can have a damaging impact on the trust between the two countries. There is also a concern that similar retaliation motivated policy responses could be forthcoming in other areas, further fracturing the existing trans-Tasman arrangements. This is why the Australian government should consult with its New Zealand counterpart when making decisions affecting both countries.

College Board Releases 2017 Trends in Higher Education Reports

Title: Trends in College Pricing and Trends in Student Aid

Authors: Sandy Baum, Jennifer Ma, Matea Pender, and Meredith Welch

The College Board this week released its updated Trends in Higher Education reports for 2017. These annual reports provide updated data on college pricing and student aid.

Findings from Trends in College Pricing show that the net price students pay, after taking into account grant aid and tax credits and deductions, continues to rise across sectors.

According to the report, the average net price of tuition and fees and room and board in 2017-18 equaled $14,940 at public four-year institutions, and $26,740 at private nonprofit four-year institutions. For public two-year institutions, net price of tuition and fees and room and board was $8,070. For this sector, room and board equals housing and food costs for commuter students. The report also includes information on published tuition and fees, differences across states, enrollment patterns, institutional finances, public funding, and college affordability.

Findings from Trends in Student Aid show a decline in student borrowing for the sixth consecutive year. In 2016-17, undergraduate students received on average $14,400 per full-time equivalent (FTE) student in financial aid. Shifting to Pell Grants, the findings of the report show that total Pell expenditures declined from $35.8 billion in 2011-12 to $26.6 billion in 2016-17. A total of 32 percent of undergraduate students received Pell Grants in 2016-17, a decline from 38 percent in 2011-12. The report also includes data on borrowing, distribution of student aid, and student debt.

To read the full reports and explore the data, please see the College Board’s website.

A South African case study: how to transform student support efforts

South Africa’s universities have created a number of programmes to address the historic – and still existing – imbalance between black and white students.

Black students are more likely than their white peers to drop out without completing their degrees. Many experience deeply rooted institutional racism. (I use the word “black” here in the South African context to include everybody who was classified as African, Coloured and Indian under apartheid.)

And so each year about 15% of those students entering higher education do so through equity development programmes. These take several different forms, such as the academic development programmes and the extended curriculum programmes, which extend regular undergraduate study by one year.

All are designed to help talented but under-prepared students with financial, academic and mentoring support.

These development programmes have made it possible for “tens of thousands of students” to enter tertiary institutions since 1994. Success rates, especially for extended curriculum programmes, are high.

But this success comes at a cost. My research and experience of working on an undergraduate fellowship programme at the “historically white” University of Cape Town has shown how participation in development programmes profoundly affects black students’ sense of identity and their feelings of self-worth.

Students experience intense feelings of discomfort, confusion and even embarrassment at being classified as “different” and an “anomaly” alongside the norm of white academic success.

Apartheid’s racist legacy

Development programmes are designed to facilitate students’ non-discriminatory access into higher education. They also aim to promote the “transformation of institutional cultures” at historically white universities.

Students are placed in the programmes based on their final high school grades as well as national benchmark tests. These results determine university placement as well as whether extra academic support is needed.

The majority of students who enter these programmes are black – and so they enter historically white universities with the labels “African”, “Coloured”, “Indian” or “previously disadvantaged” stamped on their existence – labels that symbolise “deficit”, serving to distinguish black students from the accepted norms of white academic success.

But this feeling of otherness doesn’t only exist with relation to whiteness. The vexed issue of racial classification takes centre stage. One student said:

I thought I would be accepted as a black person… but I found… I was ‘other’ and I was ‘Coloured’ – and that was a revelation and it’s a root of lots of resentment and disillusionment on my part.

Being “black”, then, is not a homogeneous experience. Terms such as “disadvantage”, “transformation” and “black identity” have different meanings for African, Coloured and Indian students. This is a consequence of apartheid’s hierarchy of race categories under which Coloureds and Indians enjoyed better privileges than Africans.

So from the outset it seems impossible that these students can attain a sense of belonging.

But my research and experience have shown that this needn’t be the case. If development programmes take on the fact that students are operating in uncomfortable, emotionally charged environments, the programmes can be turned into spaces that are productive and where students can develop a true sense of belonging.

This means actively engaging and encouraging critical discussion about issues of race, class, identity and citizenship in white-dominated spaces.

The undergraduate fellowship programme, on which I based my research, has shown that this is possible.

A case study of success

The fellowship programmes is small – only five fellows are selected for the programme each year.

Fellows operate in a close-knit network which facilitates critical debates about race. In this environment students are able to raise and confront tough, uncomfortable questions. The programme acknowledges the varied experiences and perceptions of the world that its fellows bring along. These differences are used as a basis for collaborative peer engagement and for creating a sense of common purpose and belonging.

Another core aspect of programme is mentorship. Each student selects an academic mentor – a specialist in a particular discipline who is responsible for inducting the student into that field. Mentors guide, facilitate and create opportunities for student advancement.

Funding is important too. The fellowship is largely funded by international organisations and is well resourced, allowing students to travel to local and international fellowship conferences, have access to specialised mentoring, research writing retreats and funds to repay some student debt on completing their PhDs.

This approach creates a shift in perception: black identity comes to be viewed in terms of how one feels, in the words of German philosopher Martin Heidegger, about one’s existence and sense of “being in the world”. This allows for opportunities to create a more confident, authentic sense of “being” human that allows, as Heidegger puts it “one to feel at home within oneself”.

Lessons

Of course, there is no single perfect approach for developing equity within higher education. But the lessons from my research show how important it is to create spaces for reflecting on student experiences and perceptions of higher education.

Extended development programmes shouldn’t try to sanitise contentious issues. Instead, they should embrace the discomfort of engaging students about the necessity of the programmes and how they are meant to contribute to transformation agendas.

Taking ownership in this way provides a platform for students to generate their own sense of belonging.

The university must be the site of the next Reformation – here’s why

When Less Is More: Prioritizing Open Access

Title: When Less Is More: Prioritizing Open Access

Author: Christopher M. Mullin

Date: October 2017

A recent report from the American Association of Community Colleges examines the impact of funding decisions based on institutional full-time equivalent (FTE) student calculations. This metric is derived by dividing the total number of credit hours taken at an institution during a year by the number of credit hours that typically constitutes a full-time student (e.g., a college with 30,000 credit hours in one year would have 1,000 FTE students if the full-time load at that college was 30 hours per year).

Providing funding based on FTE students is particularly disadvantageous for community colleges, where for accounting purposes, one FTE student equates to more than two real students (as opposed to public land-grant universities, where approximately 1.15 students equates to one FTE student). So for every one FTE student, about 2.2 students need to share parking spaces, advisors, counselors, apprenticeship opportunities, and a whole host of other services provided by the institution that was funded with the expectation that only one FTE student would be using these services.

Instead of being penalized for providing access, Mullin argues for a new enrollment vocabulary that is clearer, more direct, and inclusive of data relating to both FTE enrollment and real-student headcounts. For community college leaders, he advocates that they work locally and regionally to advance new ways of thinking about FTE funding for the betterment of their open-access missions.

For more information, read the full report here.

A Winning Recipe for Successful Internationalization Worldwide

Institutional autonomy plus national support seems to be the key combination

By Lucia Brajkovic

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In order to categorize these policies and place them in a larger context, ACE’s 2015 study Internationalizing Higher Education Worldwide: National Policies and Programs takes stock of the variety of national and regional government bodies and other entities that implement internationalization policies. Overall, the report found that clarity, commitment, flexibility, and buy-in by a broad spectrum of actors are crucial ingredients for policy effectiveness.

A recent study by the British Council, The Shape of Global Higher Education: International Mobility of Students, Research and Education Provision, takes the analysis a step further, identifying countries and territories with the most supportive international education policies, including student mobility, transnational education, and international research. Germany, the Netherlands, Malaysia and Hong Kong were first among the 38 countries included in the study— they had in common policies recognizing transnational education (TNE) qualifications, visa policies in place for international research mobility, and international student scholarships.

“Quantitative indicators like student mobility and TNE all have increased hugely over the past five to 10 years and part of that is that countries are getting better at recording data so it’s becoming more of an embedded part of national systems,” said Michael Peak, senior advisor on education research at the British Council, in an interview with PIE News.

Janet Ilieva, principal author of the British Council report, concluded that having both national support and institutional autonomy seems to be the winning combination for successful internationalization, singling out Australia, France, and the Netherlands as countries where the higher education sector works well with policymakers.

The U.S. Policy Landscape

The United States, a country with a high research output and over one million international students, is not among the highest-scoring countries in British Council study. As Ilieva told PIE News, that is partly due to the absence of a national higher education policy: “There isn’t a national policy and that’s mainly because internationalization [endeavors] are driven at the institutional level,” she said. “I don’t think the sector gets the same level of support as institutions in Germany, for example.”

This issue also has been tackled in the recent ACE report Internationalizing U.S. Higher Education: Current Policies, Future Directions, in which Robin Matross Helms takes an in-depth look at the higher education internationalization policy landscape in the United States. The ACE report takes stock of the internationalization-related initiatives of key policy players—including the U.S. Departments of State, Education, and Defense, as well as the National Science Foundation and other agencies—and categorizes their policies and programs according to the typology developed in the companion report Internationalizing Higher Education Worldwide to draw comparisons to global activity. Based on this analysis, the report considers what additional federal efforts are needed to further advance higher education internationalization on a national scale.

Given the decentralized structure of the U.S. government and the size and diversity of the higher education system in this country, it seems unlikely that a single, overarching national policy would be truly effective. Instead, going forward, the United States needs a broad, coordinated set of well-funded initiatives that support the comprehensive internationalization of U.S. higher education. Toward this end, we need a focused effort to better leverage existing government policies and programs to advancing internationalization, and ensure that all policies and programs—existing and new—are adequately funded.

The ACE report concludes that ultimately, the internationalization of higher education needs to become a jointly held national priority by the government and colleges and universities. However, in light of the Trump administration’s FY 2018 budget proposal, the future of internationalization seems to have taken the turn for the worse. As detailed by The Chronicle of Higher Education, the proposed budget would cut federal education programs by more than $10 billion, eliminating programs that foster foreign-language study and reducing spending that supports international education programs and exchanges, such as the Fulbright Scholar program, by 55 percent.

But as former ACE President Molly Corbett Broad said in a statement to The Chronicle and other media outlets, “Thankfully, Congress has the ultimate responsibility for setting funding levels, and with the FY 2017 spending bills, it showed a willingness to reject similarly damaging proposals. Colleges and universities and their students will work with Congress to continue the historic, bipartisan support for federal student aid and research funding.”

What’s Next?

While the British Council study focused on identifying national and regional internationalization policies, it did not investigate the extent to which these policies have been effectively implemented. The next step needed to provide sound policy recommendations would entail measuring practical barriers that institutions may face when engaging in internationalization efforts. Further research is needed to explore the gaps in countries’ stated internationalization policies, and the reality of their implementation on the ground.

Teaching kids about maths using money can set them up for financial security

As the world of finance becomes more complex, most of us aren’t keeping up. In this series we’re exploring what it means to be financially literate.

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One of the most common complaints children have about learning maths is its lack of relevance to their lives outside school. When they fail to see the importance of maths to their current and future lives, they often lose interest.

This results in opting out of mathematics study as soon as they can, and proclaiming they are “not good at maths”.

Financial literacy – learning about budgeting, saving, investing and basic financial decision making – taught by both parents and teachers can help keep them engaged.

Three strategies for teachers

The Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers promote the teaching of financial literacy through maths with the help of contemporary teaching and learning resources that reflect students’ interests. These include lesson plans, units of work, children’s literature, and interactive digital resources such as games.

A wide range of resources are available from websites such as MoneySmart and Financial Literacy Australia. These are an excellent way to begin teaching financial literacy concepts, with some units of work specifically designed with a mathematics focus. However, these units can and should be adjusted to suit the specific needs of the students in your classroom.

Additionally, teachers should consider using resources that are familiar to students’ everyday lives. These could include items that are in the news media, shopping catalogues, television commercials etc. Keep watch for interesting photographs or misleading advertisements. They are great for starting discussions about maths. Questions such as “is this really a good deal?”, “what is the best deal?” or even “what mathematics do we need to know and understand to work out if this advertisement is offering a bargain?” could begin discussions.

There are also a range of apps that could be used alongside maths and financial literacy explorations, including budgeting apps and supermarket apps such as TrackMySpend, Smart Budget, or My Student Budget Planner . If you like using picture books to introduce and teach concepts, the Money & Stuff website has an extensive list of books relating to financial literacy.

The money connection

One way to improve engagement with mathematics is for schools to teach it in ways that children are familiar with. Most children are familiar with money, and many are already consumers of financial services from a young age. Research has found that it’s not uncommon for children to have accounts with access to online payment facilities or to use mobile phones during the primary school years. It’s clear that financial literacy and mathematics skills would be beneficial when using such products.

Financial education programs for young people can be essential in nurturing sound financial knowledge and behaviour in students from a young age. Using real-life contexts involving financial literacy can help children learn a range of mathematical concepts and numeracy skills like lending and borrowing, budgeting, and interest rates. They are more likely to remember and understand what they have learned because they applied mathematics to something they’re interested in and something that they can use in their lives.

Research into the teaching of financial literacy combined with mathematics in primary schools shows how important it is for all children to understand the importance and value of money and recognise the maths that underpins consumer and financial literacy.

They also need to engage in real world projects and investigations relating to consumer and financial literacy to understand how mathematics is applied in everyday decisions that could influence life opportunities.

Shopping is a teaching opportunity for parents

Many young children don’t understand where money comes from. It’s important that they begin to develop some understanding of how our economy works, even from a young age. Research has found a pattern emerging where children whose parents talk to them about money develop an earlier understanding of its importance. They are also provided with more opportunities to deal with making decisions about money.

If you have young children in primary school, it’s a great time to start their financial literacy and mathematics education. There are plenty of opportunities when you are out shopping to include your child in discussions and decisions where appropriate, or explain the financial decisions you make on their behalf. Talk about the mathematics involved in financial decision-making. Where possible, encourage children to make their own financial decisions with things like pocket money or savings. If you feel you need to improve your own financial literacy first, there are many resources available for adults.

Teaching children about money through mathematics helps children learn. It helps them use mathematics in real-life scenarios and, more importantly, can help set them up for future financial security.

Faces of Dreamers: Nicolle Uria

This is one in a series of posts on individual Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as young children, many of whom are under threat of deportation following the Trump administration’s decision last month to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA.

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Dreamer Nicolle Uria, a senior at Annandale High School in Fairfax Country, VA, plans to apply to college, major in journalism or business and one day head a media company, reports The Washington Post. But, the paper noted in a profile of her, “the DACA decision turned that future, once brimming with goals, into a waiting game stuffed with questions, ones only Congress can answer and make her wonder if she has a future here at all.”

Uria, who came to the United States from Bolivia when she was just a year old, described her situation this way: “It’s like you’re sailing in a beautiful ocean and then you crash and it’s raining a lot. And you’re stuck and you don’t know where to go, which way to swim, it’s dark and you can’t see. That’s how I feel right now with DACA maybe ending.”

To read the full story, click here.

Brexit, academic freedom and where the law stands on universities being quizzed about what they teach

Unraveling what’s holding back women economists in academia

Performance funding is not the way to improve university teaching

A week after the Nick Xenophon Team called for a new review of higher education, the Productivity Commission has provided one, of sorts. The report, titled “Shifting the Dial”, covers higher education as well as health care, schools, cities, government and energy. It is part of much broader five-year productivity review and covers topics from recent policy debate on higher education.

Research vs teaching

A core issue in the commission’s analysis is that universities put too much emphasis on research rather than teaching.

This issue has deep roots in university history. University students were (and are) expected to be much more self-directed than school students. Partly as a result, the academic workforce did not make university teaching into a profession. They did not require training before starting university teaching careers, and did not set clear standards that all teaching academics had to meet. Until the 1990s, there were few government or market pressures to improve.

By contrast, university research did turn into a profession. A research qualification, usually a PhD, became the norm for career academics, attracting people with a strong interest in research. Peer review of academic work was used to uphold quality standards. The government reinforced internal university culture by awarding research funding based on quality and performance.

The imbalance between teaching and research has been recognised as a problem for decades. Numerous national policy initiatives have aimed to improve teaching, with many more university-level changes.

These changes contributed to slow but steady improvement in student satisfaction with teaching. There is certainly still room to do better. However, I doubt that the commission’s proposals would add constructively to the policies already in place.

Universities already have performance incentives

Like the government and the opposition, the commission sees merit in government performance funding that rewards or penalises universities according to student outcomes. They believe it would help shift attention from research to student interests in teaching and graduate employment.

The commission overlooks how much university incentives have already changed. The old system of near-guaranteed student funding, regardless of performance, is long gone. If students are dissatisfied with their university, they can leave. In a highly competitive market, some universities cannot easily replace them. Last year, more than 60,000 people applied for university based on a previous incomplete higher education course.

Universities know that graduate employment is an issue. Enrolment growth has been greatest in health-related courses, which have the best employment outcomes. Employability programs, especially work-integrated learning, are expanding.

Universities with weak reputations attract fewer new students. Although overall domestic student numbers are growing slowly, that conceals how some universities are increasing their student intakes, while others are in decline. For universities, there are already penalties and rewards for failure and success. Bureaucratic performance schemes would struggle to enhance these existing incentives.

Performance is hard to calculate

As the commission acknowledges, reliable measures of university performance are hard to calculate. However, there is a deeper problem than how to conduct the statistical analysis: when students have many different goals and needs, and universities have many different missions and objectives, what counts as good performance is not always clear.

Attrition, one area of university performance discussed in the report, is a good example. Some students leave university because they are not satisfied with the institution, or because they should never have been admitted. These are negative reasons. Students also leave because they change their mind about their course or career, because work or family need to take priority, or because they have already learned what they need to know. These are neutral or positive reasons.

In enrolling some students, universities will know about their above-average risk of not completing. Students should be informed of these risks, and the Commission has an interesting section about consumer law protections for students who may have been misled.

But where the university’s mission includes widening access to higher education, we should not penalise them for creating opportunities. Nor should we give universities an additional incentive to pressure students to stay, when it is in their best interests to go.

Separating teaching and research funding could be bad for students

One reason universities might not achieve good student outcomes is that they do not spend enough money on teaching. The commission is concerned about teaching revenues being spent on research, especially as the “teaching-research nexus”, a claimed mutually beneficial relationship between the two main university activities, has been hard to prove.

A university cost study commissioned by the government, and used to justify its now-blocked “efficiency dividend” funding cuts, estimated universities spent 85% of their student and Commonwealth contribution revenue on teaching in 2015. Presumably, much of the remaining 15% was spent on research.

The commission would prefer funding rates based on teaching costs only, which would also adapt the funding system to their proposal for teaching-only universities. They support offsetting funding policies for research. However, completely separating teaching and research funding could work against, rather than for, students.

A teaching “profit” that can be spent on research is an incentive for universities to be responsive to student interests. Students are now more likely to get into their first-preference field of education and university. This is because most previous controls on student numbers by field and university were lifted, leaving universities free to respond to student demand, and with a market pressure to do so.

On a break-even teaching funding regime with entirely separate research funding, the incentives would have been different. The major research universities would have chased the new research money rather than, as most of them did, new students. Fewer students would have attended their first-preference university.

The commission’s broad belief that universities can improve the student experience is right. But they miss how much has already happened, along with the current system’s strengths. More than ever, universities have an incentive to respond to student interests, and the flexibility to do so. We should not distract them with policy changes that could easily make things worse.

What makes a good university? Academics and students have different ideas

Telling Chinese students to conform won’t fix cross-cultural issues

Incidents of Chinese students being offended by Australian lecturers have become a heated topic in the media. Some reports blame lecturers for mentioning sensitive matters (such as the status of Taiwan), others express concerns about preserving the freedom of speech in Australian campuses, and some attribute the students’ reaction to deliberate influence from the Chinese government.

Government influence or not, these incidents should not come as a surprise. Universities are cross-cultural contexts which, by default, come with endless opportunities for cultural blunders.

Australian universities now include over half a million international students (30% hailing from China), along with lecturers who are not always Australian-born, and Australians who have diverse cultural backgrounds.

Depending on how you engage with it, the classroom could be either a cultural minefield or an opportunity to improve cross-cultural competency.

In the incidents we hear about, lecturers are portrayed as unaware of or not caring about their students’ sensitivities. Chinese students are portrayed as failing to observe the old principle “when in Rome, do as Romans do”, recently reaffirmed by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop in a statement:

That’s who we are. And they should abide by it.

There is value in both these perspectives. Lecturers can and should improve their understanding of cultural implications, while international students should engage with (and respect) Australian values. But these “shoulds” do not fully capture the complexity of human behaviour or cross-cultural interactions.

Checking our assumptions

One of the problematic assumptions underlying opinions about what lecturers and students should and shouldn’t do is the expectation that one could learn everything there is about all cultures, and as a result, avoid any mistakes. This is simply impossible.

There have been numerous incidents of international marketing campaigns that got “lost in translation”, despite companies devoting significant resources to understanding their customers.

This is not to say that learning about cultures is useless. Learning about cultures will increase your cultural intelligence, but it will not make you completely immune to blunders.

A second problematic assumption is that we process information rationally. This is an unrealistic expectation, even in the university context. There is extensive literature about the pervasiveness of cognitive biases – those mental shortcuts that help us cope with both overload and lack of information, but that also make us producers, believers, and defenders of “alternative facts”. Simply put, we’re subjective in our perception of the world.

In a study I conducted with colleagues in the US, we found the university context is not immune to such biases. We evaluate information that is presented to us through personal lenses: “what does that say about me?” A Chinese student who strongly identifies as Chinese is likely to struggle with information that challenges a view that was always presented as “the truth”. Just like any of us is likely to struggle with information that challenges our own understanding of who we are, or what we stand for.

Last but not least, generalisations never help in cross-cultural contexts. Not all Chinese students are offended when exposed to culturally sensitive topics, and not all Australian lecturers are cultural offenders. But sooner or later, each of us can be – in and outside of the classroom.

“Demining” the cultural minefield

Given that it’s unrealistic to fully prevent cultural blunders, and that blunders are likely to offend, we need to consider an alternative approach.

A “demining” approach begins with letting go of the “us” and “them” narrative. Decades of research on social identity tell us that the “ingroup/outgroup” framing leads to tension, competition, and prejudice. The remedy is to re-categorise the two groups as one. In the classroom, an easy way to achieve this is to define the class as a community, with the lecturer being part of it.

It is also helpful to have students and lecturers explicitly work towards a common goal. This idea has been confirmed again and again since being introduced in the 1950s as part of the contact hypothesis, which suggests that under certain conditions, bringing groups together improves inter-group relationships.

My cross-cultural research and teaching experience confirms that refocusing on common questions (as opposed to divergent opinions) is useful and possible. Unfortunately, both students and lecturers involved in the recent incidents missed the opportunity to do that. When we frame freedom of speech and cultural sensitivity as competing goals, we miss that opportunity too.

Finally, showing curiosity and genuinely trying to understand other people’s perspectives works in every context, including classrooms. That means focusing less on what we know, or believe, and listening to what others know or believe.

Such “demining” approaches can transform a cultural minefield into a place where different worldviews are not necessarily problematic, but rather, a learning opportunity for all involved.

More teenage girls are self harming than ever before – here’s why

Pipelines, Pathways, and Institutional Leadership: An Update on the Status of Women in Higher Education

ACE recently updated its infographic brief, Pipelines, Pathways, and Institutional Leadership: An Update on the Status of Women in Higher Education Leadership, which offers key statistics on women in higher education to help promote a dialogue on how to increase the number of women leaders in the field.

The brief includes data illustrating women’s degree attainment in higher education, the percentage of women in tenure faculty positions, the pay gap between men and women at the same faculty rank, and the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions such as presidents, chief academic officers, and governing boards.

As the findings show, male faculty members made an average of $89,190, compared to women faculty members, who made an average of $73,782 during the 2015–16 academic year. Men also are more likely to hold a tenure track position in every academic rank.

The brief also provides next steps from work being done at the University of Denver.

Download the infographic brief from the ACE website.

Overweight kids: tackling childhood obesity is about more than just diet and exercise

Repayment of Student Loans Among 1995–96 and 2003–04 First-Time Beginning Students

Title: Repayment of Student Loans as of 2015 Among 1995–96 and 2003–04 First-Time Beginning Students

Source: National Center of Education Statistics

A comprehensive new report from the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) examines student loan default behaviors of the 2003-04 cohort.

When examining the loan default behaviors of students enrolled in college during 2003-04 by race, researchers found 48.6 percent black student debtors defaulted on a federal loan, as compared to 10.8 percent of Asians, 20.4 percent of whites, 34.7 percent of Hispanics, and 27 percent across all borrowers.

Another finding indicated that within the 2003-04 student cohort, the percentage of students who defaulted on a loan within 12 years varied according to the institution students first attended. For public 4-year institutions, 17 percent of students defaulted, followed by 18 percent at private nonprofit 4-year institutions, 26 percent at public 2-year institutions and 52 percent at private for-profit institutions.

To download the full report, click here.

Faces of Dreamers: Loyola University Chicago Students

This is one in a series of posts on individual Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as young children, many of whom are under threat of deportation following the Trump administration’s decision last month to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA.

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Cristina Nunez, who was 2 years old when her family migrated to Illinois from Mexico, is a Dean’s List history major at Loyola University Chicago and plans to attend law school. Zarna Patel, a third-year student at Loyola’s Stritch School of Medicine, was 3 years old when her family brought her to North Carolina from India. Jose Martinez (a pseudonym) taught himself English when his parents migrated to Southern California from Mexico. Today he dreams of becoming a structural engineer.

Loyola tells their stories as part of its campaign to support Dreamers and ask Congress to pass legislation permanently protecting these outstanding young people.

The university also has coordinated an effort that saw 7,362 letters sent to 84 members of Congress—84 senators and 297 representatives—by members of the Loyola community on behalf of students who are directly affected by the fate of the DACA policy. The letters were personally delivered to Capitol Hill Oct. 18 during Protect Dreamers higher education week.

Click here to read more about Loyola’s Dreamers initiatives and resources.

‘Identity politics’ have not taken over university history courses

Faces of Dreamers: Four Harvard University Students Recount Their Journeys

This is one in a series of posts on individual Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as young children, many of whom are under threat of deportation following the Trump administration’s decision last month to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA.

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Harvard University (MA) student Jin Park remembers being told to always be mindful of his surroundings growing up in New York City, to keep quiet about being undocumented, and to avoid busy streets where he might encounter immigration agents.

Park is one of four undocumented Harvard undergraduates who spoke to the Harvard Gazette in May, prior to the Trump administration’s decision in September to rescind DACA, about their challenges, concerns, and hopes. Read their stories, in their own words, by clicking here.

Left to right: Jin Park ’18 is an undocumented immigrant from South Korea and New York. He discovered his legal status after being rejected for an internship. Laura Veira-Ramirez ’20 came out about her illegal status when she delivered her valedictorian speech at her high school graduation. Bruno Villegas McCubbin ’19 is from Peru and California. Brenda Esqueda Morales ’20 is from Mexico and Nebraska. Her father has been in deportation proceedings since before her high school graduation. Photos courtesy of Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer

New research shows some children who struggle to read or write may actually have hearing problems

New Postsecondary Data Includes Expanded Look at College Completion

Title: New Postsecondary Data Includes Expanded Look at College Completion

Source: National Center for Education Sciences (NCES)

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has released a new report providing data on degree-seeking undergraduate students and their completion outcomes.

The report includes graduation statistics by race, ethnicity, and gender and is further organized by institutional type and student status (i.e., first-time, full-time vs. part-time students). Overall, the data indicated a 53.6 percent completion rate for students attending 4-year intuitions and a 31.6 percent completion rate for students attending 2-year institutions over a span of eight years.

Transfer students, also identified in the report as non-first-time students, experienced completion rates of 66.4 percent for those attending public 4-year institutions full-time and 35.6 percent for those attending public 2-year institutions full-time.

Graduation outcomes by race echoed current data on widening completion gaps for minority students. Among first-time, full-time students who attended a 4-year institution and were seeking a bachelor’s degree or equivalent, 68 percent of white students earned their degrees within six years, as compared to 39.7 percent black students and 38.7 percent of American Indian students.

To read the full report, please see NCES’s website.

Faces of Dreamers: Linda Escot and Ricardo Lujan, Southern Oregon University

This is one in a series of posts on individual Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as young children, many of whom are under threat of deportation following the Trump administration’s decision last month to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA.

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Southern Oregon University (SOU) student Linda Escot was brought to the United States at age 6 and dreams of becoming a pediatrician, but says the Trump administration’s decision to rescind DACA “was like a punch in the face.” Recent Southern Oregon graduate Ricardo Lujan, who worked his way through college, is now reconsidering his plans to go to law school.

Escot and Lujan told their stories earlier this month in a Mail Tribune article about how the national DACA debate is leaving young immigrants like them in limbo.

Escot is starting her junior year at SOU, where she takes challenging science courses in preparation for a career in medicine. Without legal status, Escot said she doubts she can get a private loan to help finance the high cost of medical school. She would graduate from SOU but would not become a pediatrician.

“My hopes and dreams would end there,” she said.

Lujan, who was brought to the United States at age 8, earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and moved to Portland this summer after landing a job with the Oregon Student Association.

“I planned on going to law school. That has always been a dream of mine,” said Lujan. “I will definitely have to postpone that. If DACA is rescinded, how will I even get a loan to go to law school in the first place?”

Read the full article with their stories here.

Faces of Dreamers: Karina Aguilar Guerrero, Princeton University

This is one in a series of posts on individual Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as young children, many of whom are under threat of deportation following the Trump administration’s decision last month to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA.

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DACA recipient Karina Aguilar Guerrero, who is studying public policy and education at Princeton University (NJ), is one of five Dreamers on the cover of People en Español‘s November issue.

After years of uncertainty about her immigration status in the United States, Guerrero—who was born in Mexicali, Mexico—told the magazine she was finally able to breath when the DACA policy was put in place in 2012.

“[Being undocumented] pushed me to try harder to do my best in school, get involved, get into sports and I think that also definitely helped me when it came to applying to Princeton,” Guerrero said. “I knew there were going to be obstacles in the way when I wanted to go to school.”

“We deserve to feel safe and secure because we are humans and we need to be seen that way,” she added

Read the full profile and view a video of Guerrero by clicking here.

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Three strategies to help students navigate dodgy online content

A recent Stanford University Report revealed that students’ abilities to distinguish between questionable and valid online content needed work.

In one example cited in the report, researchers set high school and university students a task to evaluate the credibility of information found on the MinimumWage.com site. Only 9% of high school students and 6% of university students could identify the site was actually a front for a right-wing think-tank.

The lack of critical judgement displayed by high school and university students in this example is, as the report’s authors identified, a challenge that’s bigger than fake news.

It doesn’t just affect young people, either. In analysing the issue, the problem is not so much how we educate to identify hoax sites, as generally these are low frequency and quickly identifiable. The real challenge is how we educate people, both young and old, to critically evaluate the perspectives, aims and purposes of a website. In short, how do we help people distinguish between fact and opinion?

Here are three strategies based on the findings of the Stanford Report to help navigate the online information minefield.

1. Get off the website

A traditional approach to educating about these challenges has been conducting “website evaluations” using a checklist. This usually involves judging the reliability of a site based on the information it contains, such as a named author, the publication date, domain name, and so on.

However, this approach underestimates how sophisticated and deceptive the internet has become. Instead of a vertical checklist approach, web users need to interact laterally. That involves getting off the website and searching for other information that can provide clues as to the validity and balance of information it contains. For example, thoroughly researching sites’ authors may reveal their political alignments, if they are funded by another person or organisation with particular agendas, and so on. Accurate answers to such questions will most likely only be found off the website.

2. Use a site’s reference list

Another good strategy is to go straight to the site’s reference list, if one is available. If no reference list is provided, it may well be a good reason to dig deeper.

3. Identify adjectives

Adjectives describe how something feels, looks, sounds and acts. They indicate the tone or mood of the message and suggest to readers how they should respond to the content of the site. A savvy web user can identify adjectives, think critically about how these encourage them to view the content of the site, and then evaluate the compatibility between the message itself and the effect of how the message is communicated.

These are just a few practical tips. Above all, readers should cast a more critical eye over information they use from the web, to make sure the knowledge built from it is trustworthy and accurate.

The myth of the “digital native”

“Digital native” was a buzz term of the early 2000’s, used to define young people born into a digital world. According to the architect of the “digital native” narrative, Marc Prensky, if you were born before 1980, you were known as a “digital immigrant”. Digital immigrants allegedly struggle with the technical domain that digital natives find so natural.

However, this narrative promoted an “us” versus “them” divide and did little to further our understanding of how young people interact with online information. The native generation may well be good at flicking between Facebook, Twitter and Instagram whilst texting their best friend about what’s happening on those sites, but the acts of “liking” or “friending” seldom involve making critical judgements.

It could be argued that young people’s saturated use of social media actually works against building critical thinking capabilities, as their interaction with the information is generally at a low level such as (re)tweeting, or simply claiming or making a positive or negative response.

We also need to remember that people born pre-1980 are not necessarily bad with technology. Time has exposed the “digital native versus digital immigrant” narrative to be little more than popular folklore. Even Prensky has backed away from the debate, and now considers we should concentrate on building something he calls “digital wisdom”.

Building “digital wisdom”, the ability to select accurate and balanced online information and use it productively to construct robust and well-informed perspectives and knowledge, should be the goal for education at all levels.