No life, no hobbies, burnout, lost childhood — the price students pay for a prized IIT seat

 Last year, 1.5 million students took the JEE to qualify for 13,000 seats in 23 IITs across the country – in other words, for each seat there were 115 aspirants.

They are the country’s premier engineering institutes and getting into them is internationally considered more difficult than admission into Princeton, America’s Ivy League university.

Last year, 1.5 million students took the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) to qualify for 13,000 seats in 23 IITs across the country — in other words, for each seat there were 115 aspirants.

So intense is the pressure and so gruelling is the preparation required that students as young as 14 start the process, often missing out on the simple joys of adolescence. Most give up extra-curricular activities, relationships with friends and peers, and all forms of entertainment to achieve the goal. By the time they achieve their aim, if they do, many realise they have lost out on social skills, ability to communicate easily with others (an attribute now known as soft skills), and of course, some part of their youth.

An IIT Delhi professor who has been teaching for the last two decades underlines this reality, saying when students come to them after two or three years of prep, they don’t even know how to behave socially.

“They have been cut off from society, they are unaware of current affairs, and are desperately in need of our induction programme for freshers where we try to re-orient them to society and the institute,” the professor said on the condition of anonymity.

Students appearing for the JEE Mains in Kolkata in September 2020 (representational image) | ANI

This skill gap haunts them even when they graduate. Despite all the hard work engineering students put in, a survey conducted in 2019 found that 80 per cent of engineers “are not fit for any job in the knowledge economy and only 2.5 per cent of them possess technical skills in Artificial Intelligence (AI) that industry requires”. The skill gap between what they learn and what is required of them in their workspaces makes them unemployable. 

Yet, in India’s shortage economy, where everything of value is kept in limited supply, there is no end to this annual exercise of competing in the JEE.

Like a 23-year-old machine learning engineer based out of Florida, who started his JEE preparation as early as Class 8, because his peers had started as early as Class 6. The engineer says he was so engrossed in his prep that he ignored basics such as good hygiene, good grooming, or even making friends.

“It took me an entire gap year before undergraduation to recognise and overcome these shortcomings,” he now says.

Or 29-year-old Shivam Narang, now working as a procurement manager with a prominent firm in Mumbai, who spent three years preparing for JEE. An “above average student”, he had to work 12-14 hours a day to crack one of the toughest exams in the world, making him lose out on much of his teenage years.

A basketball player in high school, Narang had to quit the sport after Class 10, once he started preparing for the engineering entrance, moving to Kota from Delhi, the coaching college magnet for all IIT aspirants.

“There is no room for hobbies – even playing your favourite sport for 30 minutes comes with a feeling of guilt,” Narang says. “Add to that the shift to an alien city with a competitive environment, which is so difficult to adjust to.”

The constant pressure and fear of losing out led him to leave Kota. He took a break and took admission into a National Institute of Technology (NIT).

“The loss of my values is what affected me the most. I am still very competitive and don’t feel comfortable working in a team. My personality changed, as did my body. I gained 35 kilos in a matter of months and my weight went up to 120 kilos,” Narang remembers.

School, coaching, weekly exams

Some students such as Narang start preparing for the JEE at the age of 16, but others start as early as 12. These students, along with attending regular school, also go to coaching sessions and take weekly examinations. In the routine of coaching, school and tests, students claim that they miss out on important life skills, networking and overall personality development.

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for medical college admission, which has become a political hot potato in Tamil Nadu, so much so that the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has promised to scrap it, is only marginally less difficult. In 2020, more than 1.5 million students appeared for it, a 15 per cent rise from the number of applicants in 2018. 

Of them, under 800,000 students were able to qualify for one of the 82,026 seats at 541 medical colleges across the country. After the introduction of the examination in 2017, several students committed suicide after failing to clear it.  

The DMK has promised to do away with the examination and put back in place the previous system of admission to medical colleges in the state, based on results of the state Class 12 board exam. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), meanwhile, has offered to provide additional training to NEET aspirants.   

According to coaching institutes, an average student spends 16 hours a week attending these extra classes, in addition to their regular school and studies. The annual financial cost of attending these sessions goes up to Rs 2 lakh.

Pragya Bhardwaj, 35, who now practises as a gynaecologist in Bengaluru, took a three-year break after school to prepare for her medical entrance test.  

“I could not get an MBBS seat in the first attempt and it required two more attempts. Finally, after the third attempt, I got a seat in a reputed medical college in Karnataka. But the journey to get there was gruelling and took a toll on my personality, my health, mental well-being and social connections, almost everything,” Bhardwaj recalls.

Students are allowed two attempts at JEE, but there is no cap for the number of NEET attempts — there is, however, an age bar of 25. 

The problem is not individual but systemic. As Dr Soumitra Pathare, director of the Pune-based Centre for Mental Health Law and Policy, puts it: “If you create a scarcity for something and push young students to try and get that scarce product in a restricted environment, it is bound to affect them mentally.

“Premier institutes in our country have an admission rate of about 0.1 per cent, so what kind of outcome can you expect? No matter how resilient an individual is, when the system is rigged against them, it is criminal when the individual breaks down.”  

Parents go to the extent of disconnecting their children from the outer world to “help them focus”. Activities such as watching television, surfing the Internet, and participating in social events, sports and hobbies are placed at the bottom of the list of priorities. Shweta Garg, 50, a homemaker based out of Ahmedabad, says the two years her son spent preparing for the JEE meant the entire family put a pause on normal life.  

“Those two years were not only difficult for my son but for the entire family as well. To ensure that he was able to focus on boards and competitive exams, we removed the cable connection so that there were zero disturbances for him. Family vacations and social events were given a skip and a serious environment was created in the house,” she told ThePrint.  

Yet, her son was unable to make it to an IIT. Garg sidesteps that, saying she thinks her son matured during the period. Although he missed meeting his friends and cousins, he knew he had to prioritise.  

The role of coaching classes

Coaching institutes make things worse for aspirants. Kishore Kumar, an IIT Kharagpur alumnus based out of Delhi, who has been coaching JEE and NEET students for the past 11 years, says the institutes create an atmosphere where students are divided into batches based on their performance.

If a student spends five years training in a ‘low-performing’ batch, it conditions the child to not think of himself/herself beyond a low-performing student. He/she will then hesitate to take part in group activities or anything else to assist his/her personality growth.

Anand Kumar of ‘Super 30’ fame says he ensures the focus of his students is on enhancing their creativity so that they don’t become another cog in the wheel.

“Most of my students are from rural backgrounds with poor financial stability,” he said. “Whoever shows a flair for scientific learning turns up for coaching. My focus largely remains on enhancing the ability of students to grasp concepts. They need to learn about real-life applications of their studies to ensure success even after getting into an IIT.”

Speaking about the types of skills he imparts, Kumar said, “Instead of just going by textbook examples, I try to relate the concepts with their real life situations. This helps students understand things better. I also need to prepare them for a massive shift, from a rural setting to a college, and then a formal workplace. To do so, we pick examples of world leaders with humble beginnings and read from their biographies.”

Of the 510 students he has trained over 19 years, 410 have got into IITs, NITs and other notable engineering colleges.   

Some experts even question the necessity of coaching classes. Meeta Sengupta, founder of the Centre for Education Strategy, a Delhi-based think tank dealing in education policy issues, said: “Although experts say that coaching helps students take the exams, it is not healthy for children. They lose the space for discovery and innovation during the course of such training.” 

Several students, because of the lack of an outlet and no mindspace for anything other than studies, experience a burnout by the time they reach a university. This leads to several mental health problems.

A mental health expert with an IIT, who chose to remain anonymous, said, “The most common problem among IIT students, who have all their lives been seen as high achievers, is the sense of a vacuum. It can also be called an ‘existential crisis’. After years of rigorous training, students start searching for a deeper meaning in life. This can either happen because of anxiety issues or depression, or exacerbate them as well.” 

(Source: The Print)

UK universities receive record number of applications in lockdown

More than four in 10 18-year-olds applied by 30 June, with biggest rise at peak of Covid-19 crisis

A record 40.5% of all 18-year-olds in the UK have applied to go to university, with numbers rising significantly during lockdown, according to the university admissions service Ucas.

It is the first time that more than four out of 10 students (40.5%) had applied by 30 June to go to university and the figures will offer some comfort to universities bracing themselves for the Covid-19 aftershock.

At the same point in the admissions cycle last year, the figure was 38.9%, and Ucas points out that between mid-March and the end of June, when the pandemic was at its height in the UK, applications rose by 17%.

Applications for nursing are up 15% year on year, and Ucas says that for the first time more than a quarter (25.4%) of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds had applied to university or college by 30 June, the final deadline to apply for up to five courses simultaneously.

It is unknown how many students will change their minds and opt not to go to university in September, put off by the impact of Covid-19 restrictions. Photograph: Kumar Sriskandan/Alamy

While the sector will be relieved that domestic applications appear buoyant at this stage, what is as yet unknown is how many students will change their minds and choose not to go to university in September, put off by the impact of Covid-19 restrictions on the student experience.

Earlier this week, the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned that the after-effects of the coronavirus outbreak could spell financial disaster for as many as 13 British universities, with the exact size of losses dependent on how many students decide not to enrol.

According to Ucas, by 30 June just over 514,000 people of all ages across the UK had applied for a place on an undergraduate course, up 1.6% on figures at the same point last year. The number of applicants from outside the EU was up 10%, at just over 89,000, while the EU was 2% down on last year, at just over 49,500. Those figures could however change significantly by the start of the new academic year as students reflect on their choices.

Clare Marchant, Ucas chief executive, said: “Universities and colleges are setting out their ambitions to welcome students to their campuses this autumn, with many planning to blend high-quality online learning with face-to-face teaching and support. Confidence is building for an autumn term that safely captures the essence of the academic year’s traditional start as much as possible.”

(Source: The Guardian)

If we can do without GCSEs and university exams now, why go back?

Abandon this addiction to assessment. For one year at least, let the class of 2020 be assumed to have passed with honour

The exam season is upon us, or rather is not upon us. Its pens and papers, its clocks, marks, adjustments and grades are as dust. There are some blessings to Covid-19, and one may yet be to liberate education from the dictatorship of “the test”.

The government has already abandoned this year’s GCSEs and A-levels, replacing them with a bureaucratic miasma of calculated and standardised grades in a frantic attempt to keep its beloved metrics alive. For a year, Britain’s children are excused the medieval ritual of sitting in a great hall like acolytes at an altar, trying to remember answers to questions they have just “revised” and will soon forget again. Exam environments are an unreal world, before QWERTY, computers, mobiles and the internet were invented, yet one on which they were told their future depended. It is still guarded by that most conservative of professions, teaching the young.

A devastating assault on this parody of modern education comes from the information technology radical, Conrad Wolfram. Called The Math(s) Fix, it portrays maths as a subject which, perhaps like others, is trapped in the pre-computer age. This is largely because scribbling numbers on paper is the easiest way the authorities can measure, compare and regulate children, pandering to “an unhealthy fixation for assessment, an addictive fix for policy-makers to push”. Maths is the apotheosis of the exam, with its pretence of exactitude. To me, Wolfram portrays maths exams as like taking a driving test with a horse and cart. It needs to take over where the computer leaves off, in a world of calculated uncertainty, risk and, dare we say it, common sense.

‘Who needs a lecture hall when you can sit in Starbucks with a book and a laptop?’ Photograph: Vadym Drobot/Alamy Stock Photo

If overnight we can do without GCSE exams – surely never to return – what about A-levels? They have become the national entry ticket to a job or university, freeing employers and admissions officers from having to assess and treat young people as individuals. There are signs that policymakers are waking up to this. The Whitehall 2020 guidance on awarding qualifications calls on universities to “take a holistic approach” on how to admit students, whatever that means.

At least the A-level exam is a rite of passage, but why universities need to hold exams escapes me. Their students are paying them for a service. If they do not like it, or it does not like them, they can leave. Education lies in the totality of the course, not something that can be written down on paper. Exams are a make-work scheme for dons merely to see “who is top”.

Here, push has really come to shove. Oxford has abolished its first-year exams for this year, baldly stating: “Students will be assumed to have passed.” Some universities are refashioning their climactic exam as an “open-book” test, an online, home-bound experience with a clock ticking. Students may dispense with pen and paper, but stern “honour” warnings are issued against plagiarism – or as the satirist Tom Lehrer said, “call it research”. This must be a huge advantage to those with quiet, well-equipped studies and nifty copy-and-paste skills.

To the obvious solution – Oxford assuming everyone who finishes a course has “passed” – the protest is, what about class of degree as ticket to ride? This bluff, too, has been called. In 2017 the accountancy giant, Grant Thornton, made a dramatic discovery. It had been screening its annual 10,000 applicants for graduates with firsts and 2:1s. For some reason – perhaps a CEO with a 2:2 – it dropped this barrier in favour of intensive interviews. It subsequently found more recruits with “poorer” degrees became high fliers than those with higher ones. Degree class was actually a negative indicator of future achievement. A subsequent Bridge Group survey found class of degree was not even cited for City jobs, as against “behaviour at interview”. There are no degrees in that.

Universities now face a horrendous challenge. They are about to lose tens of thousands of lucrative overseas students. Their finances are in ruin. According to the Office for National Statistics, a third of all graduates are doing jobs for which no degree is needed, and that is likely to worsen. Meanwhile Google, Wikipedia and online data have transformed the world of information, learning and research. Yet universities are stuck with three and four-year courses, long holidays and a fixation with exams.

So why not an experiment? Edinburgh, Manchester, Cambridge and others have already put their lectures online, Cambridge for an entire year. It is hard to see why they should ever revert. Who needs a lecture hall when you can sit in Starbucks with a book and a laptop? A live university is about two-way interaction. When it comes to exams, for one year at least, let “the class of 2020” be assumed to have passed “with honour”. Then, say five years on, let us investigate if freedom from exams had really harmed them, or rather allowed them that essence of learning, more contact between teacher and taught. Something tells me these would be the gilded ones of their generation.

(Source: The Guardian)

Cambridge University moves all lectures online until summer 2021

Institution first to announce virtual teaching for next academic year

Cambridge has become the first university to set out measures for the full 2020-21 academic year, announcing that it will move all “face-to-face lectures” online for the duration. The institution added that it was “likely” social distancing would continue to be required.

The university said lectures would continue virtually until summer 2021, while it may be possible for smaller teaching groups to take place in person if it “conforms to social-distancing requirements”.

Cambridge University said it may be possible for smaller teaching groups to take place in person social distancing was possible. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Reuters

A spokesman said: “The university is constantly adapting to changing advice as it emerges during this pandemic. Given that it is likely that social distancing will continue to be required, the university has decided there will be no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year.

“Lectures will continue to be made available online and it may be possible to host smaller teaching groups in person, as long as this conforms to social-distancing requirements. This decision has been taken now to facilitate planning, but as ever, will be reviewed should there be changes to official advice on coronavirus.”

All teaching at the university was moved online in March. Exams are being carried out virtually.

It comes after the Office for Students (OfS), the higher education regulator, urged universities not to promise students that everything will return to normal in the autumn term if this is not the case.

Addressing a virtual education select committee on Monday, Nicola Dandridge, chief executive at the OfS, said students should be told what kind of experience they will receive in advance of accepting offers.

(Source: The Guardian)

‘My world is shattering’: Foreign students stranded by coronavirus

When the pandemic shuttered colleges, many international students had no idea where to live or whether they would ever be able to return to class.

When universities abruptly shut down last month because of the coronavirus pandemic, many students returned to their parents’ homes, distraught over having to give up their social lives and vital on-campus networking opportunities. Graduating seniors lost the chance to cross anything but a virtual commencement stage.

But the campus closures have created much greater calamity in the lives of the more than a million international students who left their home countries to study in the United States. Many had been living in college dorms and were left to try to find new housing, far from home in a country under lockdown.

The empty Yale University campus last month. Credit... Sasha Rudensky for The New York Times

A substantial number of international students are also watching their financial lives fall apart: Visa restrictions prevent them from working off campuses, which are now closed. And while some come from families wealthy enough to pay for their housing or whisk them home, many others had already been struggling to cobble together tuition fees that tend to be much higher than those paid by Americans.

As their bank accounts dwindle, some international students say they have had to turn to food banks for help. Others are couch surfing in the family homes of their friends but do not know how long they will be welcome. Those who rushed to fly home before international borders closed are not sure they will be able to come back.

“My world is shattering,” said Elina Mariutsa, a Russian student studying international affairs and political science at Northeastern University whose parents sold an apartment and borrowed money from friends to pay for her previous semesters of college.

She is all but certain that, with the Russian ruble’s recent rapid devaluation amid the current global economic collapse, her family will be unable to pay the $27,000 bill for her final semester of college — let alone help her with living expenses now.

“I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to graduate. Right now we definitely can’t pay for the last semester, and it’s literally just four courses left,” she said.

Universities, which often receive a substantial share of their budgets from foreign students, said they moved quickly to help international students by opening a limited number of dorms when possible, flying students home in some cases and lobbying the federal government for support. New York University, which has more foreign students than any college in the country, created emergency grants available to international students.

“It’s hard and it’s constantly evolving,” said Jigisha B. Patel, the chief adviser for international students at Northeastern. “Everybody has really moved toward doing everything they can during this time.”

Anna Scarlato, a University of Chicago student from Italy, is staying in California for now. Credit... Anna Scarlato

The federal government has stepped in to help college students who have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, but in keeping with its America-first agenda, the Trump administration announced on Wednesday that international and undocumented students would be excluded from the roughly $6 billion in federal aid targeted to help students pay for expenses like food and housing.

Many students said the help provided by their universities was not nearly enough.

“It was a very hectic moment because I had no idea where to go,” said Anna Scarlato, an Italian student who learned in March that she would be kicked out of her dorm at the University of Chicago within days.

With nowhere else to go, Ms. Scarlato moved to her boyfriend’s dorm at a different school, but the next day they learned that campus housing was closing there, too.

Ms. Scarlato agreed to sublet a room in a Chicago apartment, but then learned that her parents, who were under lockdown as a result of the pandemic in Italy, would be unable to get to a bank to transfer her any money for rent.

At the last minute, her boyfriend’s mother bought Ms. Scarlato a ticket to go home with him to Orange County, Calif. “I have no idea where I’m going to be in the next two weeks or a month or two months,” she said. “It feels like I’m being a parasite in some way.”

Sam Brakarsh, a junior at Yale studying social psychology and global health. Credit... Sam Brakarsh

When classes were canceled at Yale University, Sam Brakarsh, a student from Zimbabwe, feared carrying the virus back to his aging parents or getting stranded by flight restrictions. The internet in his parents’ home works for only three hours a day.

Instead, he decided to bunk temporarily with a classmate from Amherst, Mass., who was moving home with his parents and younger brother.

Now, hoping to avoid overstaying his welcome and the fact that his student health insurance only works near campus, Mr. Brakarsh is planning to move next into an extra bedroom in the home of a professor.

But “nothing is definitive,” he said.

Some students have been reluctant to share the extent of their troubles with their families who were already struggling to pay for their schooling.

Stephany da Silva Triska said her mother in Brazil stopped eating out in restaurants, did not replace her old car, and cut back on vacations so her daughter could study politics at California State University, Long Beach.

In turn, Ms. Triska worked hard to justify her mother’s sacrifice. She was chosen by professors as an outstanding senior in her major and won a prestigious international policy fellowship.

A ceremony to recognize her achievements has been canceled and her fellowship is on hold. But she has bigger problems, including whether she will be able to finish college at all. Her mother’s interior design business, which funded the portion of her education that was not covered by scholarships, has dried up.

Ms. Triska, who lives in an apartment she pays for with her student job, still owes $600 toward the tuition fee for her final semester of college.

“Every time I log into my student account, I see the $600 balance. I don’t even know who I should go to, if they would be open to negotiating the remaining balance,” Ms. Triska said.

Students who rushed to airports to beat looming border closures and wait out the pandemic at home also fear they will face legal hurdles when they try to return to the United States to complete their schooling.

Mercy Idindili, a sophomore at Yale studying statistics, said she returned to Tanzania after feeling pressured to do so in a series of emails from college administrators that made clear the institution was going to make “very few exceptions” for international students who wanted to stay in the United States.

At first, Ms. Idindili made plans to stay with a friend in Georgia, but when other international students warned her that the arrangement could become uncomfortable if it went on for too long, Ms. Idindili decided to go home at the last minute.

Before leaving on a ticket paid for by the school, she made sure to warn her professors that she was going to be seven hours ahead and that her internet access would be inconsistent because of frequent blackouts.

“Honestly, that whole week was very hard,” she said, “I did cry a lot because I was so confused and so disappointed by everything.”

Stephany da Silva Triska from Brazil doesn’t have the $600 she needs to pay to graduate from California State University, Long Beach. Credit... Stephany da Silva Triska

At first, she had been waking up at 3 a.m. to attend virtual lectures in a linear algebra class that was giving her trouble. Her professor has since begun recording the lectures for her, which is helping her keep up.

But Ms. Idindili’s visa to re-enter the United States expires in July, and American consulates abroad are all closed indefinitely. The State Department has also suspended visa processing until further notice.

“I’m just really scared of what happens if Tanzania doesn’t solve this problem soon enough, and the U.S. consulate chooses to remain closed for a long time and I’m not able to renew my visa and go back to school,” she said.

The legal status of all international students has become less certain because of the coronavirus pandemic. Normally, their visas require them to take classes in person, rather than online. The Department of Homeland Security temporarily relaxed that rule in light of the crisis, but the exception could be reversed at any time.

Some students said they cannot wait for a more permanent solution to their visa problems. Emma Tran, who studies studio art and psychology at California State University, Long Beach, burst into tears explaining she only has enough money in her bank account to cover another month and a half of living expenses, and will likely have to return home to Vietnam.

Ms. Tran lost both of her campus jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic. Her parents’ income from an apartment they own, half of which they typically rent out to tourists, has also dropped precipitously.

Trying to stretch funds, Ms. Tran at first went to a food pantry on campus, but her parents discouraged her from taking donated goods that others might need more than she did. Since then, she has resorted to eating rice for more of her meals and either skipping or limiting the amount of meat she consumes to save money.

“My mom said if this thing doesn’t get controlled in two or three months, I will have to go back home,” she said, “It’s really sad.”

Ms. Mariutsa, the Russian student at Northeastern University, had been overseas last month for an internship in Geneva when she learned of the crisis.

She woke up one morning to a news alert announcing that the American border would close that evening and dozens of missed calls from friends and family who were worried about her.

Also in her inbox was an email from Northeastern telling her to pack her things and return to the United States immediately. Airports in Geneva close early, and the last flight was scheduled to take off only about four hours later.

“It was probably the most stressful day of my life,” she said.

In the end, she decided to stay in Switzerland after her boss discouraged her from flying to New York; it was a coronavirus hot spot where she would have nowhere to stay.

Now, she is living without health insurance or income. When the money she saved from a previous internship runs out, she plans to move in with colleagues who offered up their couches.

On Friday, she learned that she had been chosen by Northeastern as one of the 100 most influential seniors in her graduating class this year.

“When I was a freshman, I felt like that would be the biggest accomplishment ever because international students don’t usually get those awards, because of the language and cultural differences. It’s really hard to shine in the United States,” she said.

“But now,” she explained, “I don’t even know if I’m going to be graduating. It just feels like, does it even matter anymore?”

(Source: NYT)

Indian university education available in Qatar next year

A long wait for the Indian parents for affordable, quality higher education in Qatar for their children seems to be ending next year.

DPS MIS Group says they are opening colleges offering courses in arts, science, commerce and liberal arts in 2020.

A press release from the DPS in Doha said an MoU was signed to this effect between Savitribai Phule Pune University vice-chancellor Dr Nitin Karmalkar and Milestone International Education chairman Ali A. Latif Al Mesned on Wednesday in New Delhi.

(Left to right: Ibrahim Al Nuaimi, Prafulla Pawar, Nitin Karmalkar, Hassan Chougule, Ali A. Latif Al Mesned and Mohd Al Khater).        

MIE executive committee president Hassan Chougule called it a big achievement for the DPS MIS Group, Qatar.

“In association with Mohammed Bin Hammam and Ali A. Latif Al Mesned, we are providing pre-KG to college degrees now,” he said. It’s a “complete educational solution to all parents, and residents of Qatar and the Indian community in particular.”

SPPU registrar Dr Prafulla Pawar, Qatar Ambassador to India Mohammad Al Khater, Qatar’s Ministry of Education undersecretary Dr Ibrahim Al Nuaimi and other ministry representatives were also present.

The signing took place on the sidelines of FICCI International Higher Education Conference held at Vigyan Bhavan, a property of India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

(Source: The Peninsula)

Private women's university in Miyagi to accept transgender students

A private women’s university in Miyagi Prefecture said Saturday it will start accepting from April 2021 students who were assigned male at birth but identify as female, becoming the first private institution in Japan to admit such transgender students.

Miyagi Gakuin Women’s University in Sendai said it will not require students to submit medical certification to prove their gender identity to avoid forced outing.

Miyagi Gakuin Women's University in Sendai said it will not require students to submit medical certification to prove their gender identity.

“The notion of gender or gender identity has become flexible. It is our mission as a women’s university to protect all women and give them a supportive push,” Arata Hirakawa, president of the university, said at a news conference.

Ochanomizu University and Nara Women’s University, both public institutions, had already decided to accept transgender students, but no private university in Japan had done so, according to the education ministry.

The university in Sendai has previously approved the admission of several students who were born female but identify as male.

The university had been considering measures to support sexual minority students since August 2017.

(Source: JT)

Overseas students face ‘unacceptable’ visa costs after outsourcing

Universities fear chaos in September as private company struggles with workload

International students and staff at British universities are facing “unacceptable” difficulties and costs in applying for visas, after parts of the application process were outsourced to a company charging up to £200 for appointments.

Universities say that the system, run by the French IT services company Sopra Steria, is already struggling to cope with the numbers renewing their student visas within the UK, and fear that it will be chaotic in September when more than 40,000 students are expected to use it.

“Despite constructive engagement between the Home Office, UK Visas and Immigration and universities, the current capacity and level of service being offered by Sopra Steria remains unacceptable,” said Alistair Jarvis, the chief executive of Universities UK.

“Students and universities cannot be expected to pay to address Sopra Steria’s broken system. We are calling on Sopra Steria to fully address these concerns before the September surge of students so that students can start their courses with the visas they need.”

Until March applicants were able to use a service provided through post offices to check documents and provide biometric information such as photographs. But since then they must book appointments through six Sopra Steria-run centres around the UK or pay extra for appointments in other cities.

 Sopra Steria claims it is working with the Home Office and UK Visas and Immigration to deliver the Tier 4 application service for overseas students. Photograph: Alamy

Universities UK, which represents more than 130 British higher education institutions, has received a stream of complaints about Sopra Steria from its members, and from students unable to book free appointments required to scan documents and take fingerprints.

Sopra Steria offers “enhanced” appointments at its main offices for extra fees, including next-day or emergency appointments from £100 to £200. Appointments can be made online, or through the company’s phone line which costs £2.50 a minute. The company’s website also offers appointments at a “premium lounge” in the City of London starting at £200, “for customers who desire a service with added comfort and privacy”.

Those costs are on top of the £475 that international students typically pay for a tier 4 visa application, and £300 a year surcharge for use of the NHS.

Elisa Calcagni, a student from Chile studying for a doctorate at the University of Cambridge, said: “I was required to enrol my biometrics through Sopra Steria. I had not expected any additional charges but I found it virtually impossible to find a free appointment.

“The time window for bookings on the online system only covers two weeks and there were no free appointments available, or any appointments at all in Cambridge. I called the Sopra Steria support line and they suggested to keep checking the website for cancelled appointments.

“I didn’t want the uncertainty of constantly checking the system with no guarantee of an appointment becoming available, so I elected to pay £100 for an appointment in Croydon, two hours away. Despite booking a timed appointment, there was a waiting time of an hour and then the system wasn’t working properly leading to further delays.”

Free appointments are said to be between 10am and 4pm at the company’s core centres, in Birmingham, Belfast, Cardiff, Croydon in south London, Glasgow and Manchester. In some other cities “enhanced service points” offer appointments for £60 to £125, in many cases located in public libraries.

“As a result, some students are paying to fast-track their appointments and travelling to one of Sopra Steria’s centres, often many miles away from where they live,” Universities UK said.

Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, said the “shoddy” service was the wrong way to treat students making significant educational and financial contributions to the UK.

“While other countries are falling over themselves to attract international students, this Tory government continues to subject them to a hostile environment,” Abbott said.

“Sopra Steria are yet another private contractor, like G4S and Serco, given millions in public funds by the Home Office, and providing a shoddy service.”

A spokesperson for the company said: “Sopra Steria is working closely with the Home Office, universities and higher education institutions across the UK to deliver the tier 4 visa application service. This is tailored to each institution’s needs to provide greater student convenience and choice.

“We are focused on adapting the service to respond to areas of greatest demand and are increasing capacity where needed.”

Other students have also said they couldn’t access online appointments administered by Sopra Steria. Khalid Elkhereiji, a student at the University of Southampton who uses a screen reader to read onscreen text aloud, said it could not deal with parts of the online application.

“This is not a problem that I face with other websites and it meant I was not able to log in without the assistance of a sighted person,” Elkhereiji said.

“I have explained my concerns with the accessibility of the service to Sopra Steria and I believe it is a relatively simple issue to fix. However, I have not had any further updates from Sopra Steria and there has been no confirmation that their website is inclusive and accessible to everyone.”

After eventually logging on Elkhereiji found there were no appointments available in Southampton, and obtained one only after his university intervened.

In 2017 Sopra Steria came under fire for its involvement in NHS Shared Business Services (SBS), a venture it co-owned with the Department of Health, after the Guardian revealed that more than 500,000 pieces of sensitive medical correspondence handled by SBS had gone missing.

(Source: The Guardian)

Oxford University promises 25% of places to disadvantaged

University of Oxford is promising a "sea-change" in admissions, with plans for a quarter of students to come from disadvantaged backgrounds by 2023.

The university wants to tackle accusations that it is socially exclusive.

Oxford will soon announce that 60.5% of its most recent intake are from state schools - the highest since the 1970s.

But vice-chancellor Louise Richardson says she wants to "accelerate the pace at which we are diversifying".

What's the problem they are trying to solve?
Oxford, along with other top universities, has faced claims of perpetuating privilege - with too many privately-educated students and not enough from poorer backgrounds.

The Sutton Trust social mobility charity showed recently that Oxford and Cambridge recruit more students from eight, mostly-private schools than almost 3,000 other UK state schools put together.

Labour MP David Lammy has lambasted the university for admitting too few black students.

The university wants to send a strong signal that it remains very competitive to get a place - but that should be about ability rather than background.

Prof Richardson says she wants to ensure that "every academically exceptional student in the country knows that they have a fair chance of a place at Oxford".

She is being supported by the head of the Sutton Trust, Sir Peter Lampl, who described the scale of Oxford's target as "really impressive".

How will they get more places for disadvantaged applicants?
At present about 15% of Oxford's undergraduate students are from deprived areas - and the university wants to increase this significantly to 25% over the next four years.

An access scheme will have places for 200 high-achieving disadvantaged students each year.

These will be students, identified during the application process, who will be offered a place and then given extra support before beginning their degree courses.

Another 50 places will be available for a foundation year, aimed at developing students who show high academic potential, but whose education might have been disrupted or who had to overcome personal disadvantage.

Those who successfully complete the foundation year will go on to begin undergraduate courses.

What counts as disadvantaged?
It is not by income thresholds or ethnicity, but is mainly based on a socio-economic profile of where people live.

This uses two postcode-based systems, called Polar and Acorn, which measure local levels of deprivation or affluence.

Louise Richardson says she wants a "sea change" in the approach to admissions

The particular focus of Polar is the level of entry to university from people living in that area.

There have been critics of Polar - including Universities Minister Chris Skidmore, who wants to find a better way of showing disadvantage.

For instance, a very poor area with relatively high levels of university entry, such as in some parts of London, might not appear to be disadvantaged.

But the university says it will also consider some individual markers of hardship - such as spending time in care or eligibility for free school meals.

Such approaches depend on helping people who have already tried for a place at Oxford.

Some of the hardest-to-reach groups, such as white, working-class boys, might have not even considered applying.

Is this another squeezed middle?
If 25% of places are to be targeted at applicants from poorer areas - and in recent years, about 40% of places have gone to pupils from private schools - then that leaves 35% for everyone else.

That would be the remaining slice of places for all those state school pupils who do not live in the most deprived areas - which is to say, state-educated families in the middle.

Such an analysis is rejected by Oxford - with the university saying there is no reason to assume that so many places will go to private school pupils in the future.

The next round of entry figures, covering 2018, will show 60.5% of students from state schools, more than about 58% in the two previous years, and the highest in these records going back more than 40 years.

But it is worth noting that all these figures are about the proportion of UK undergraduates - and they do not include the increase in overseas applicants getting places.

There might be an extra 250 places for deprived youngsters - but on current trends, there will be more than 700 overseas students.

Will this stop accusations of snobbery and elitism?
Very unlikely. As the competition for places at top universities has become more intense, so too has the public scrutiny.

Such famous universities are seen not only in terms of academic excellence, but as markers of social status and a passport to top professions.

So there will be more questions about what "fair" entry means - and arguments over representative intakes and "social engineering".

There are fewer UK students at Oxford and Cambridge than a decade ago, with more places for overseas students

Chris Millward, the Office for Students' director for fair access, says there will be more "pressure" on universities over access for disadvantaged students.

But there are concerns from the private school sector about not making unfair assumptions.

"Many pupils in state schools come from high-income homes and many pupils attending independent schools receive means-tested bursaries," said Julie Robinson, chief executive of the Independent Schools Council.

Luke Heselwood of the Reform think tank said the places for poorer applicants were a "drop in the ocean when 40% of Oxford students are from a private school, compared to 7% in the country".

He said that Oxford should be targeting high achieving disadvantaged students who might not even apply to a top university.

Labour's shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said "this is an important step in the right direction" - and that "for too long our top universities have been a closed club".

Mr Skidmore welcomed the announcement, saying such universities should be open to everyone who "has the potential".

(Source: BBC)

What happens after rich kids bribe their way into college? I teach them

A professor at an elite US school says an influx of unskilled and entitled students is monopolizing faculty time: ‘They will eat you alive’

If you think corruption in elite US college admissions is bad, what happens once those students are in the classroom is even worse.

I know, because I teach at an elite American university – one of the oldest and best-known, which rejects about 90% of applicants each year for the small number of places it can offer to undergraduates.

Students who can’t get into elite schools based on academic merit don’t change once they are in class. Photograph: Clerkenwell/Getty Images

In this setting, where teaching quality is at a premium and students expect faculty to give them extensive personal attention, the presence of unqualified students admitted through corrupt practices is an unmitigated disaster for education and research. While such students have long been present in the form of legacy admits, top sports recruits and the kids of multimillion-dollar donors, the latest scandal represents a new tier of Americans elbowing their way into elite universities: unqualified students from families too poor to fund new buildings, but rich enough to pay six-figure bribes to coaches and admissions advisers. This increase in the proportion of students who can’t do the work that elite universities expect of them has – at least to me and my colleagues – begun to create a palpable strain on the system, threatening the quality of education and research we are expected to deliver.

Students who can’t get into elite schools through the front door based on academic merit don’t change once they’re in class. They can’t do the work, and are generally uninterested in gaining the skills they need in order to do well. Exhibit A from the recent admissions corruption scandal is “social media celebrity” Olivia Jade Gianulli, whose parents bought her a place at the University of Southern California, and who announced last August to her huge YouTube following that “I don’t know how much of school I’m going to attend. But I do want the experience of, like, game days, partying … I don’t really care about school.”

Every unqualified student admitted to an elite university ends up devouring hugely disproportionate amounts of faculty time and resources that rightfully belong to all the students in class. By monopolizing faculty time to help compensate for their lack of necessary academic skills, unqualified students can also derail faculty research that could benefit everyone, outside the university as well as within it. To save themselves and their careers, many of my colleagues have decided that it is no longer worth it to uphold high expectations in the classroom. “Lower your standards,” they advise new colleagues. “The fight isn’t worth it, and the administration won’t back you up if you try.”

In comparing stories, we have also found that such students strive to “work the system”, using university procedures to get the grades they desire, rather than those they have earned, and if necessary to punish faculty who refuse to accede to those demands. It is perhaps unsurprising that students whose parents circumvent the rules to get them into elite universities are often the ones who become adept at manipulating the university system in a corrupt way.

The University of Southern California was thrust into the college admissions scandal after it was revealed Olivia Jade Gianulli’s parents paid for her spot. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

Even for elite universities that enjoy endowments equivalent to the GDPs of small countries, there is a ruthless calculus involved in encouraging students – even the unqualified ones admitted through corrupt means – to regard themselves as customers who are always right, and faculty as service providers who serve up choice grades on demand. Students who represent money, whether in the form of their parents’ donations or athletic prowess that attracts viewers and media coverage, are simply worth more to universities as long-term sources of revenue than the faculty themselves. However well-known our names might be, most of us can easily be replaced from among the army of un- and under-employed PhDs struggling for a place in a shrinking labor market. We, not the rich students, are expendable.

For untenured faculty members, the pressures created by this setup can be a threat to their careers: it’s very difficult to teach well, let alone do the research and publishing necessary to keep your job, when you’re being hounded to provide a remedial education on top of an already heavy set of official duties.

Even for tenured professors, whose jobs are supposedly secure, becoming known as someone who won’t “play ball” by giving the sports star or the legacy an easy pass can mean exclusion from important opportunities and sources of support. So we suck it up as we recap our lectures for students who couldn’t attend due to golf team practice, or teach them skills most Americans learn in high school, or create extra credit assignments to bring up their marks.

This kind of thing has easily added 10-12 hours a week to my workload, and I know I’m not alone in that respect. As one of my colleagues put it, the unskilled and entitled students will “eat you alive”. Over the past decades as an instructor, I have seen my teaching workload increase dramatically despite holding the same number of courses in the same subjects. What has changed is the proportion of unqualified students in the classroom.

Elite American universities were never fully meritocratic. But the social benefits they produced, such as faculty contributions to knowledge and the upward mobility of first-generation college graduates, lent them legitimacy and purpose. What has been lost in the admissions corruption scandal far exceeds the handful of silver some accepted to sell out those ideals.

(Source: The Guardian)