A growing number of university students have trouble with basic maths, an expert said yesterday.

Young people are struggling with their degree subject because they lack even basic numerical skills, it is claimed.

Dr Christie Marr, head of the Mathematics Support Centre, based at St Andrews University, said that even the brightest students may need help.

It follows fears by the Royal Society of Chemistry earlier this year that Britain’s economic stability was under threat because levels of basic skills among Chinese students far outstrip those of home-grown school-leavers…

Source: Telegraph.co.uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/27/nfees227.xml

Japan has one of the oldest and most established systems of higher education in Asia, but today its universities are scrambling to find new ways to attract students. Years of falling birthrates have rapidly shrunk the population of young Japanese, leaving increasingly larger numbers of universities unable to find enough students to fill their classrooms and campuses.

The rapid graying of Japan’s population has already made its presence felt in other parts of society, including the lower rungs of the nation’s education system where hundreds of half-empty elementary and high schools have closed or been merged over the last two decades. But it has only recently begun to affect higher education.

According to census statistics, the number of 18-year-old Japanese has fallen to 1.3 million this year from 2.05 million in 1992, when the second peak of Japan’s baby-boomers’ children were entering universities…

Source: International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/21/news/japan.php

Around half of all CVs received by recruitment consultants, says the Recruitment and Employment Commission, contain spelling or grammatical errors, and these are most likely to be made by those aged between 21 and 25. In this age group, graduates are twice as likely to make mistakes as those who did not go on to university…

Formal written communication is, in part, being eroded by our text and email culture. These methods of communication are instantaneous, so no time is taken to proofread messages before they are sent.

CV errors give the impression that university qualifications may not meet the standards demanded in everyday work, says Hadley. “Having a degree is one thing but it is no substitute for basic skills. If people can get into university and graduate without needing them, it is a bad sign for the future.”

In the workplace, today’s graduates are not alone in their literacy shortcomings. Anyone who went to school between the late 60s and the late 90s is part of a “lost generation” when it comes to any kind of formal education in grammar and punctuation. Both were missing from the UK school curriculum for more than 30 years…

Source: Guardian Unlimited
http://money.guardian.co.uk/workweekly/story/0,,2093240,00.html

“High schools will be a relic of the past pretty soon. When you’ve got 40 percent of the students dropping out, they are not working. You have got to do something different,” Easley said. “We’re using high schools as satellite colleges, and we are giving people more incentive to stay there and work hard.” …

As America moves toward an increasingly technological society, public school systems have been challenged to find ways to keep kids motivated enough to remain in school and to prepare them to compete in a global workforce that requires more than a high school diploma…

Early-college programs, in which high schools are set up on junior college campuses, offer younger students an early taste of campus life while giving them a head start toward a degree. In addition to taking required high school courses, they take junior college courses…

“Regardless of whether they have no money or whether there are one or two parents in the house, these kids can go to college, get a good job and have a share of the great economic pie,” Watlington said. “All we need is for the parents to send them to school with a good attitude and a good work ethic. Then it is our job to educate them.” …

Source: Chicago Tribune
http://tinyurl.com/2sgwda

It’s a culture clash, all right, and one that leaves parents on both sides anxious. The Chinese parents at my children’s British-style, international school in Beijing have exactly the opposite fears about their national school system from yours. Their worry is the cost of the Asian triumph in maths exams.

Confucian attitudes to authority mean schools nurture outstanding discipline, and an awe-inspiring ability to memorise facts, figures and theorems…

The personal cost is great, too. The parents I spoke to were concerned about their children being competitive. Their children, in some cases, were worried about their health and sanity, as they worked harder and harder to meet the ever more competitive examination requirements…

It’s a neat symmetry. I have often wondered why a happy medium, of rigorous, Chinese-style inculcation of the basics at primary level, followed by western-style encouragement of self-motivated, critical thought at secondary, is so hard to achieve…

Source: Telegraph.co.uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/04/28/do2802.xml

Schools are discouraging pupils from taking maths A-level in favour of easier subjects to boost their ranking in national league tables, according to one of the UK’s leading science organisations.

Richard Pike, the chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, said that the trend threatens the UK’s ability to compete in a global market and also meant that universities increasingly had to offer science undergraduates remedial maths lessons…

“This contrasts starkly with countries like China, in which mathematics is seen as integral to the sciences and to the nation’s economy, and is taught to all up to the age of 18. There, the concept of remedial courses at university would be inconceivable.” …

Source: Guardian Unlimited
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2064609,00.html

Education is once again highly valued in China, with the Communist Party leadership aiming to make the country one of the most scientifically advanced in the world. But achieving that goal would require giving students more freedom to exercise their creativity — and less overcrowded universities…

Cramped quarters, overcrowded classes, expensive tuition fees that “young people from the poor west of the country could never afford,” as Mei says: That’s what university life is like for students — not just at Beijing Normal University — but throughout China…

… The road to becoming an educated nation and scientific superpower is a long one. Only 5 percent of all Chinese people between the ages of 25 and 64 currently hold a university degree. The figure for the European Union is 21 percent, while in Japan it is as high as 34 percent. In order to catch up, the Chinese government is pumping more money into education every year — about €46 billion ($62 billion) in 2006. But some representatives of higher education in China, like Xu Zhihong (see Spiegel interview) believe that’s still too little…

Still, the number of students has risen fivefold over the past 10 years, while the number of students going on to complete a Ph.D also increased dramatically — from about 45,000 to more than 190,000 — between 1998 and 2005. Last year, a total of 17.4 million young people were students in China, compared to only 15.6 million in 2005…

Experts lament that China’s higher education lacks creativity and critical thought and is out of touch with the professional world. Like those who once aspired to become imperial clerks, today’s students are mostly expected to acquire and demonstrate theoretical knowledge…

Source: SPIEGEL ONLINE
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,476243,00.html

A study by The Conference Board has concluded that the “learning by rote” culture of the Chinese education system means its graduates often lack the practical experiences and softer creative and leadership skills required in the modern business world.

China’s educational system, it argued, relied too heavily on “memorization”, meaning that skills such as creative writing, public speaking, teamwork and leadership were not being taught well in most of China’s universities and graduate programmes…

“Making the talent search more difficult is the fact that the more experienced managers are in short supply and command high salaries,” said Judith Banister, director of global demographics at The Conference Board…

The fact that a lot of young people now wanted to work for multinationals, mainly because of the high status it gave them, had persuaded some multinationals to forge links with universities to bring about change.

In some universities, this approach has been well received and multinationals were reporting success in getting whatever skills they want. “It is an approach that should be mutually beneficial because it allows students to be trained in a way that is useful to the multinational,” said Banister.

Source: management-issues
http://tinyurl.com/2jbd3l

English-language programs are flooding South Korean universities — and they are creating a backlash from Koreans who fear a loss of their culture and professors who worry about a loss of control…

Already, concern about the issue has led in part to the ouster of a president of Korea University, one of the two top private universities in South Korea. With 30 percent of its courses taught in English, Korea University is currently the frontrunner among South Korean universities using English as a medium of instruction…

“With several top universities leading the way, the pattern will be followed by other universities in Korea,” said James Larson, deputy director of the Fulbright Korean-American Educational Commission…

Many South Korean universities are setting their sights on creating an Asian education hub like Singapore and Hong Kong in order to retain more Korean students and to attract more foreign students…

Student reactions to classes being taught in English are mixed. Although students see the advantages of being able to communicate in English, the global language, they worry about the quality of the instruction they will receive.

Source: insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/02/20/korea

The University of California, Los Angeles, generally known as UCLA, is a public university whose main campus is located in the affluent Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. Established as a branch of the state university in 1919, it is the second-oldest general-purpose campus in the University of California system and has the largest enrollment of any university in the state.

Most of its Ph.D. programs rank in the top 20 for academic quality in the United States, according to the National Research Council. The September 2006 issue of Washington Monthly magazine ranked UCLA fourth among all U.S. universities in terms of social mobility and “service to the nation” (not academic quality). In its 2007 ranking of “America’s Best Colleges,” U.S. News & World Report ranked UCLA 26th among all universities in the United States, and 3rd in the west. The university was also ranked by the National Science Foundation as the No. 1 public research university in the nation (based on the amount of research expenditure) and second only to Johns Hopkins University among all American universities, both public and private.

The university accepted 11,750 students of the more than 47,000 who applied for admission as freshmen in Fall 2005. For the past several years, no American university has had more applicants than UCLA.

… Students come to UCLA from all 50 states and more than 100 foreign countries, though the majority of undergraduates are from California.

Source: People’s Daily Online
http://english.people.com.cn/200702/03/eng20070203_347347.html