GAPS Bulletin - Global Access News, February 2017

News

Welcome to the GAPS Bulletin, February 2017

The GAPS Bulletin

Welcome to the GAPS Bulletin (February 2017)

Welcome to the global access and success community. The Global Access to Postsecondary Education (GAPS) Initiative is incorporated as an independent, non-profit and non-governmental organization in The Hague, the ‘City of Peace and Justice’. The initiative held its official launch event on February 17 hosted by The Hague University of Applied Science and The Research Platform, Connected Learning of The Hague University of Applied Sciences.

Prior to the official launch, the GAPS Executive Board met with Rubens Beçak, a representative of the University São Paulo, to continue preparations for the 2^nd World Congress on Access to Postsecondary Education which will place in São Paulo, Brazil November 1-3.

To access the news articles of this GAPS Bulletin, just click the headline and you will be automatically forwarded.

In this edition of the GAPS Bulletin you will find the following sections:

Global Access News
GAPS Network News
Latest GAPS Publication
2^nd World Congress on Access to Postsecondary Education
About GAPS
Online Library
GAPS Calendar

If you would like to add something to the next GAPS Bulletin please contact us!

GAPS Feature Story

History Repeats Itself, Finding Liberation through Education

Journalist Diya Khanna shares her father’s story and finds in it a universal truth about the power of education in the human and global mission.

Global Access News

A poor background can help your career. But rich is better
Family backgrounds matter, but sometimes they play out in unexpected ways. Fund managers, more often than not, come from poorer families. Although this might seem counterintuitive, there is an explanation.

No easy way out of the higher education ‘trilemma’
Jens Jungblut explores the impact of the higher education ‘trilemma’ and how to deal with the political goals of low public costs, low private costs (tuition fees) and mass access to higher education.

How Do We Break the Class Ceiling And Increase Access to Our Leading Professions?
Justin Madders reflects on the fact that, in the UK, where a person is born and who they are born to is the most likely determinant of what their life chances will be. He also presents the report ‘The class ceiling: Increasing access to the leading professionals.’

Norwegian Universities Want Equality For Men
Currently, Norwegian higher education institutions may reserve a certain number of places for women in study programs that are generally male-dominated. Since 1985, Norway has more female than male students. An updated version of the Gender Equality Act, aimed at ensuring equality for men in academia, will be presented this year.

Whites still better educated than blacks: StatsSA
Black South Africans between the ages of 25-64 still lag behind when it comes to obtaining higher education qualifications by comparison with other population groups. This was revealed in a report released by Statistics South Africa which maintains that white South Africans are far better off as 38% of them have postsecondary education.

If we are serious about improving social mobility, universities must lend their expertise to secondary schools
Many pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds do not get the grades to secure places at highly selective universities, where under-representation is most acute in the UK. If assessed and trained effectively to work in state schools, academic researchers from all disciplines with an understanding of higher education and a deep subject knowledge can make a significant difference in the lives of pupils.

Click here to share your initiatives or news with access & success colleagues from around the world

Time for a new gender-equality playbook
Dominic Barton and Lareina Yee claim in their essay that it is time for a new gender-equality playbook as the old one is not working. Although over 75% of CEOs include gender equality in their top ten priorities, gender outcomes across the largest companies are not changing.

There is proof diversity makes colleges better
Since the time of the civil rights movement, diversity in academia has been discussed. First it was a matter of social justice, then affirmative action was introduced and now evidence of diversity’s importance is clear, yet colleges and universities still lack diversity in their leadership.

UK Higher Education and the Lack of Ethnic Diversity
While there has been a lot of progress made in gender equality within the workplace, those from ethnic minority backgrounds still lag behind. Although certain policies have worked effectively to improve the diversity of the student population, no such affirmative steps have been taken to address inequality at the staffing level.

Why are universities stuck in the 20^th century?
Marcelo Knobel and Andrés Bernasconi explore why universities in Latin America remain entrenched in a 20^th century mindset, discourse and repertoire of functions while in North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania and the Middle East, higher education is in a process of radical change, forging new ‘social contracts’ with the communities that sustain them.

How Universities Are Increasingly Choosing Capitalism Over Education
Henry Heller presents an excerpt from his latest book ‘The Capitalist University: The Transformations of Higher Education in the United States since 1945’. Beyond a relatively few well-endowed universities, most are in serious financial difficulty caused by a decline in public financial support for higher education, hikes in tuition fees, and a move away from the ostensible mission of serving the public good in favor of emulating private enterprise.

Affordability, access fate of undocumented students top higher ed leaders’ Trump concerns
US higher education leaders discuss apprehensions about what the Trump administration could mean for the sector

GAPS Network News

Global Learning and Collaboration

The GAPS Initiative has successfully organized, in collaboration with The Hague University of Applied Sciences, the seminar ‘Global Learning and Collaboration – Closing the Gaps in Education and the Labor Market’. The seminar, which took place February 17^th, coincided with the official launch event of the GAPS Initiative. Speakers and presenters included Aminata Cairo (Leiden University), Ruben Beçak (University São Paulo), Helena Lindholm (University of Gothenburg) and Bas Derks (Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science). The full program, including all speakers. is accessible if you click here.

What is a Children's University? To access the video click the picture.

Designing a Social Compact for the 21^st Century

Michael Nettles from Educational Testing Service makes the case for investing in early childhood education worldwide.

€ 3,900 Granted to USI for Campaign Supporting Refugee Integration in Third Level

The Union of Students in Ireland was granted € 3,900 by the European Students’ Union grant program ‘Together, Moving Forward’. The grant will be used to assist refugees and asylum seekers with integration into higher education. USI’s campaign will take a three-pronged approach, including the training of ‘anti-hate speech’ ambassadors, awareness raising activities and research.

The government has assigned the Swedish Council for Higher Education with mapping Swedish HEI’s work on widening participation, highlighting good practice. This in order to learn from and inspire each other. The report also provides seven clear recommendations for sustaining success in widening participation activities over the long-term. The report is written by Aleksandra Sjöstrand, Carina Hellgren and Peter Barck-Holst. “Can excellence be achieved in homogeneous student groups?” is now available in the GAPS online library.

Latest GAPS Publication

Closing the GAPS – the ‘GAPS Think Pieces’
GAPS presents the global issues around access to postsecondary education through our ‘GAPS Think Piece’ series. Closing the GAPS features a wide variety of think pieces from key figures in research, policy and practice.

The GAPS Think Piece Issue 19
Building Confidence and Cultural Competencies in First-Generation and Low-Income Students Abroad
Rosa Acevedo Villarreal and Joshua Milligan
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

The GAPS Think Piece Issue 18
Oppression and access to postsecondary education:
Caste-based exclusion in India
Rahul Sambaraju
University of Limerick, Ireland

To access the GAPS Think Piece Series click here.

2nd World Congress
on Access to Postsecondary Education

About GAPS

Empowering students and young people
Students and Young People are not only the future of the access and success movement, but also a source of creative thinking, advocates for change and role models for other young people and potential students.

GAPS will place students and young people at the center of what we do. We will focus on engaging individual students and young people but also on the organizations that work with and for them.
The sustainability of the work of GAPS is dependent on empowering students and young people to lead the access and success movement.
Through our Students and Young People work we will:

Enable students and young people to be active participants in GAPS events
Create a virtual community to share experiences and best practice
Develop a global network of student unions and other student/young people organizations
Award those students/young people or their organizations who showed a strong commitment towards access
Integrate young post-graduates and PhD students into the research activities of GAPS.

Students and Young People’s Award for Furthering Access to Postsecondary Education
In 2015, GAPS established the Students and Young People’s Award for Furthering Access to Postsecondary Education. Those eligible to receive this award include youth and students (up to age 30) as well as youth- and student-led organizations and initiatives. Nominees must have demonstrated a strong, sustained commitment to the cause of widening access to postsecondary education and/or an innovative approach to improving equality of postsecondary opportunity and student success. Achievements of the nominees can be demonstrated in several ways, but may include the aspects of replicability, verifiability, sustainability and evidence for change. Activities performed by the nominees can for example include research, counselling, trainings, campaigns, summer schools, peer learning and/or outreach activities.
The 2015 Award was kindly sponsored by the Austrian Students’ Union (Österreichische HochschülerInnenschaft, ÖH).

The 2015 selection committee included Michael T. Nettles (Chair of the Selection Committee, ETS), Jeanna Keller Berdel (Lumina Foundation), Luke Shore (Open Society Foundations), Mary Tupan-Wenno (Echo), Miro Verdel (ÖH) and Prof. Tan Sri Dato’ Dzulkifli Abdul Razak (IAU).

Congratulations to the 2015 award winners, Saime Maqbool (Pakistan) and Frans Lesiba Bapela (South Africa)!

The Next Students and Young People’s Award for Furthering Access to Postsecondary Education will be presented during the 2^ndWorld Congress 2017.

Online Library

To view latest entries please visit the GAPS online library.

If you would like to add to this library, please get in touch with us or tweet @gapseducation

GAPS Calendar

March 5-8, 2017: ESU European Students’ Convention 33. Galway, Ireland. For more information click here.

March 8, 2017: International Women’s Day Event. Gendering Academic Mobility: International Perspectives. University of Warwick, UK. For more information, click here.

March 13, 2017: Using theory to understand HE student futures: the ‘possible selves’ concept and its application to analysis of higher education. London, UK. For details click here.

March 19-22, 2017: 37^th Annual Policy Seminar, Council for Opportunity in Education. Washington (DC), USA. For more information, click here.

March 21-22, 2017: Improving STEM Education. Designing & delivering an integrated STEM curriculum. Sydney, Australia. For details click here.

April 5-6, 2017: Enhancing Student Experience. Journey to achieving a holistic student experience. Victoria University, Australia. For more information, click here.

May 22-24, 2017: Going Global 2017, Global Cities: Connecting Talent, Driving Change. London, UK. For details click here.

May 28 – June 2, 2017: NAFSAA Annual Conference, Expanding Community, Strengthening Connections. Los Angeles (CA), USA. For details click here.

June 20-23, 2017: Virtual Educa: Innovación, Desarollo, Unclusión. Bogotá, Colombia. For more information, click here.

June 21-23, 2017: GlobalMindEd – ENLARGE YOUR WORLD. Denver (Co), USA. For more information, click here.

June 21-23, 2017: ICETIC Innovative and Creative Education and Teaching International Conference. Badajoz, Spain. For more details click here.

June 21-23, 2017: HEAd’17 3^rd International Conference on Higher Education Advances. Valencia, Spain. For more information, click here.

June 26-29, 2017: CICE Canada International Conference on Education. Mississauga, Canada. For more details click here.

June 28-30, 2017: HETL: Creating Inclusion and Diversity in Higher Education. Paisley, UK. For details click here.

September 13-16, 2017: 36^th Annual Conference, Council for Opportunity in Education. Washington (DC), USA. For details click here.

October 17-19, 2017: 14^th PASCAL International Conference, Trends 2017 – Which way to go? Skukuza (Kruger National Park), South Africa. For more information, click here.

November 1-3, 2017: 2^nd World Congress on Global Access to Postsecondary Education, Working together for a democratized postsecondary education: a key to sustainable development, São Paulo, Brazil. For more information, click here.

To access the complete Events Calendar click here.
Your event for the access & success community is missing? Contact us!

To share initiatives or news with access and success colleagues from around the world
email [email protected] or tweet @gapseducation

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