GAPS Bulletin - Global Access News, Spring 2016

News

Welcome to the GAPS Bulletin, Spring 2016.

The GAPS Bulletin

Welcome to the GAPS Bulletin (Spring 2016)

Welcome to the global access community. We are pleased to announce that the Global Access to Postsecondary Education (GAPS) Initiative is now incorporated as an independent, non-profit and non-governmental organization incorporated in The Hague, ‘City of Peace and Justice’.

This GAPS Bulletin is exceptionally published as a Spring edition; next month we will be returning to our monthly format.

GAPS Updates

In its first Board Meeting in The Hague, held May 25-27, 2016, the GAPS Executive Committee took the opportunity to meet with colleagues and potential partners located in the city to introduce GAPS and to explore areas for possible collaboration, including:

Susana Menendez, member of the Executive Board of The Hague Unviersity of Applied Sciences (THUAS) and Wâtte Zijlstra (Program Coordinator Research Platform Teaching and Learning in a Network Society)
Freddy Weima (Executive Director) and Beer Schroder (Advisor to the Board of Directors) from EP-Nuffic, and
Rosalba Icaza from the International Institute of Social Studies with whom we shared their insights about ‘decolonizing’ higher education and how to facilitate diversity in the context of higher education. Rosalba is also a member of a new established Committee on Diversity ot the University of Amsterdam

GAPS met also with Frank Tuitt (University of Denver) and Saran Stewart (University of the West Indies) to discuss their work in race, equity and the learning environment.

Plans for the 2nd GAPS World Congress on Access to Postsecondary Education (Sao Paulo, Brazil) were also discussed. Make sure that you hold the dates for the Sao Paulo Congress, which is scheduled for November 2-4, 2017. Registration will open October 1, 2016.

GAPS welcomes new partners for its work and encourages you to share or tweet using the buttons below to connect others in your networks to GAPS and to help GAPS expand its reach.

The current GAPS Executive Committee (left to right):
Eva Egron-Polak (International Association of Universities), Mary Tupan-Wenno (Echo),
Catherine M. Millett (Educational Testing Service) & Maureen Hoyler (Council for Opportunity in Education)

Global Access News

Minority Serving Institutions Offer Good ROI
A new report titled “Investing in Student Success: The Return on Investment (ROI) of Minority Serving Institutions” by the Center for Minority Serving Institutions at the University of Pennsylvania builds on t work presented at a national convening last fall by the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions and the Educational Testing Service. The report -which includes Hispanic Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and Asian American & Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions - says MSIs have proved to be a good long-term investment for students: “After accounting for college selectivity, there was no difference in the earnings of Hispanic graduates from HSIs and non-HSIs,” according to the report. “This finding is important, as HSIs are often criticized for low graduation rates and poor labor market outcomes.” MSIs educate 20 percent of all US college students.

Bergen Declaration Sets Foundation for Global Student Movement
A global declaration drafted by student activists from South America, North America, Europe, Africa and Asia-Pacific in May 2016, the Bergen Declaration aims to increase cooperation among student organizations and build a network that can develop into a global movement to address global threats such as access to education, the ‘commodification’ of tertiary education systems, academic freedom and students’ rights to organize. The document contains a statement of values for a global student voice. Spearheaded by the Norwegian Students’ Union (NSO) and the European Students’ Union (ESU), the document involved students worldwide.

The Debate Between Class Based and Race Based Affirmative Action
Affirmative action has been an important part of the admissions process in some countries for a number of decades. From the United States to South Africa, universities have adopted policies that set quotas for racial diversity. More recently, however, some regions of the world have begun to adopt class-based affirmative action, with the aim of reducing poverty levels and decreasing socioeconomic disparity. The author uses Brazil and Israel as examples, where administrators have restricted their admissions processes to reserve seats for students from low-income backgrounds.

UK Researchers Discover Graduate Earning Imbalances
New UK research has some surprising findings regarding graduate earnings. Male graduates have been found to earn less than non-university graduates after a 10 year period, while those with certain degrees, most notably in the creative arts, also earn less or similar wages as non-graduates. This represents a unique challenge for the British government and students alike. The article suggests that these findings may cause a dramatic shift in tuition fee structures as well as course offerings.

Alternative Paths to University Degrees the Focus of New Research
Lumina Foundation employees Holly Zanville and Amber Garrison Duncan recently sat down with the Education Design Lab to discuss emerging trends in university education that are diverging from the traditional degree acquisition process. These trends are driving new higher education delivery models that accommodate an increasingly diverse student body. Service learning, prior learning assessment, accelerated degree programs, and applied baccalaureate degrees were discussed.

UNESCO and L’Oreal To Sponsor Female Scientists
At a recent awards ceremony held in Paris at the Maison de la Mutualité, L’Oreal and UNESCO recognized five female scientists for their outstanding achievements and pledged to fund a portion of their future endeavors. The scientists included Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, who jointly developed a technology that facilitates the elimination of defective genes, and Quarraisha Abdool Karim, who developed an antiHIV gel that has proven to reduce the spread of the disease by 39% in users. Also present was Chen Hualan who has developed new vaccines to combat flu viruses, as well as Andrea Gamarnik, whose work has been focused on developing treatments for dengue fever.

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

Interconnectivity Key to Improving Student Enrollment in Africa
A lack of continental partnerships is a key issue for African education says the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana. Speaking at a Times Higher Education summit in Accra, Aryeetyev tied future success of the African continent to more partnerships among universities across the continent, rather than on international partnerships with well-recognized universities. While international partnerships give students’ access to international MOOC’s, says AAryeetyev, this access is not correlated with degree attainment. He also stressed the importance of growing the overall number of African universities to improve the continent’s contribution to global outcomes.

Sending Employees Back to School Benefits Corporations Financially
Health care mogul Cigna has released findings that paying for additional degrees for their employees can generate important financial returns for both the corporation and employees. The company was able to generate a return on investment of 129% from their continuing education program. Employees, on the other hand, saw their wages increase between 43% and 57%, while the number of promotions also grew. This investment in continuing education also decreased the rate of employee turnover.

Pakistan Aims to Increase Enrollment In Higher Education by 2025
Demographically, the largest portion of Pakistan’s population lies between the ages of 15 and 24. Hoping to improve the country’s weak higher educational performance and curb growing social unrest, the Pakistani government has pledged to increase higher education spending from 2% of GDP, the lowest in the region, to 4% by 2018, and to expand higher education enrollment to 12% of their target demographic from the current 6% as part of its Vision 2025 plan. Major efforts to build the pathway from primary school will need to continue.

Obama Puts Forth His “America’s College Promise Plan”
In President Barack Obama’s last State of the Union speech, he announced his government’s intention to make 2-year community college education free for students who attend class and maintain a certain grade point average. The plan is to be funded by a $100 million grant that will be collected by the Department of Labor. The America’s College Promise plan will also aim to create more institutional partnerships with employers to increase the percentage of employed graduates. To date, 27 new free community college programs have been established.

Californian Researchers Speak Out Against Common Core State Standards
New research originating from the California Alliance of Researchers for Equity in Education says that current state education standards, officially known as Common Core State Standards, do more harm than good to the educational system. Common Core was adopted with the aim of increasing critical thinking and focusing the learning process more on the student. However, researchers from the research alliance have found that the opposite is true. When combined with high stakes testing, the standards have led educators to teach a more restricted curriculum, decreasing student success over the long term. The researchers also found that the standards set by Common Core, most notably high school exit exams, have led to lower graduation rates.

ESU to Partner with Scholars at Risk Network to Protect Student Rights
ESU has joined the international Scholars at Risk network. The SAR network, which includes higher education institutions and associations, is dedicated to protecting scholars and promoting academic freedom around the world. ESU will work with SAR on protecting students’ rights, developing new tools and enhancing protection of students whose rights are violated due to political persuasion, religion, ethnic or cultural origin, sexual orientation or social standing. ESU, SAR and others are also urging the UN Human Rights Council to highlight the concerns of higher education in appointing the next Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, raising attacks on higher education communities, scholars and students in Belarus, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Venezuela, Thailand and other countries.

Croatian University Students Displeased With Student Life Conditions
According to a recently released study known as “The Eurostudent V Survey”, Croatian undergraduate students are the least satisfied with their university experience of 30 nations surveyed. Students’ main complaints are related to the cost of tuition and a lack of proper student housing.

GAPS Network News

ASDAN Project on Further Education Aspirations Nears Completion
ASDAN’s Paul Hamlyn Foundation-funded project on further education aspirations is nearing completion. The project is looking at the interface between primary and secondary education in England and the impact on further education aspirations of learners with no family model for higher education. The project aims to improve the way in which learners start their first year of secondary education by expressly developing their personal capacity to cope with the new learning situation and raising their ambitions. The project build on work conducted with Aim Higher funding that showed the decision to rule out University as an option or goal happens very early in the school career of learners and in disadvantaged learners who have no family model for Higher Education in particular. For more information, contact Kath Grant

ASDAN is a pioneering curriculum development organization and awarding body, offering programs and qualifications that explicitly grow skills for learning, skills for employment and skills for life. Developed and managed by practitioners, ASDAN grew out of research work at the University of the West of England in the 1980s and was formally established as an educational charity in 1991.

GAPS Calendar

June 13-15, 2016: ISCN 2016: Leadership for a Sustainable Future. Siena, Italy. Additional information available here.

June 21-23, 2016: 2^nd International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd’16). Valencia, Spain. For additional details click here.

July 4, 2016: ASDAN is organizing a free dissemination event in London where teachers and children involved in their Paul Hamlyn Foundation-funded project will speak about their involvement and show their work (see GAPS Network News). Interested parties should contact [email protected] to register.

August 31-September 3, 2016: Council for Opportunity in Education (COE)’s 35th Annual Conference, San Diego, California. More information available here.

September 13-16, 2016: EAIE 2016. Liverpool, United Kingdom. For more information click here.

September 19-21, 2016: National College Access Network (NCAN) Annual Conference, Detroit, Illinois. For additional information, click here.

October 21-22, 2016: American Indigenous Research Association 2016 Meeting: Research from the Field: Application of Indigenous Methodologies and Methods. Pablo (MT), USA. For more information click here.

November 10-12, 2016: ASHE Annual Conference 2016, Higher Education and the Public Good. Columbus (OH), USA. For details click here.

November 13-16, 2016: The next IAU General Conference will be held in Bangkok, Thailand. Co-organized in partnership with a Consortium of Thai universities lead by Siam University, this 15th General Conference will focus on Higher Education: a catalyst for innovative and sustainable societies. For more information, click here.

November 15, 2016: ASDAN is conducting a briefing (London) for policy makers and researchers on their Paul Hamlyn Foundation-funded project that is looking at the interface between primary and secondary education and the impact on further education aspirations of learners with no family model for higher education. Interested parties should contact [email protected] to register.

November 17-19, 2016: 11th European Quality Assurance Forum: Quality in context - embedding improvement. Ljubljana, Slovenia. For details click here.

November 23-25, 2016: Combined Conference of ICED and HELTASA Ethics, Care and Quality in Educational Development. Cape Town, South Africa. For details click here.

November 2-4, 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.

Online Library

Our online library is growing!

GAPS is building a library of books and articles which may be of interest to organisations and individuals committed to post secondary education access and equity.

To view content already submitted by the GAPS Community, please visit the GAPS online library.

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

To share initiatives or news with access and success colleagues from around the world
email Florian Kaiser or tweet @gapseducation

All links in this newsletters are being provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only. They do not consitute an edorsement or an approval by GAPS of any of the products, services or opinions of the corporation or organization. GAPS bears no responsibility for teh accuracy, legality or content of external sites or for that of subsequent links. Please contact the external site for answers to questions regarding its content.