Latest international education news

In a step towards formal recognition by the HE community, five Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on the Coursera platform have been recommended for accreditation by the American Council on Education (ACE) following a pilot project. However, it is unclear whether the three universities involved will accept ACE's endorsement.

Educators from British Columbia, Canada, welcomed delegations from China and India this autumn as the province continued pursuing its “aggressive target” to double foreign enrolments.

International tourist arrivals passed a billion last year and will grow further in 2013 according to UNTWO– potentially good news for education travel providers, such as language schools. However, some say benefits will be marred by the fact China, the main driver of growth, is yet to mature as an education travel market.

Online education in Brazil got a boost last week as Digital Education, a division of international education publishing giant Macmillan, announced investments in two technology-led businesses, Veduca and Easyaula.

The German government is to provide universities with the largest amount of funding for internationalisation projects ever. Eighteen universities will have access to €1m each over four years to develop partnerships with institutions overseas.

British students increasingly want to study at US universities as they face higher fees and graduate unemployment at home, the research organisation World Education Services claims. It found a 22% rise in applications in 2008-2010 and 13% in 2010-2012 – and says numbers will climb again next year.

The Colombian government has welcomed a group of Chinese students to the country who will teach Mandarin at top universities for the next year through an academic mobility programme with China. In its seventh year, the Programa de Movilidad Académica has strengthened ties between China and Colombia.

The Australian Council for Private Education and Training has called for student visa reforms to be extended beyond the university sector, after a damning report showed Australia’s $2billion education export industry fell sharply in the two years to FY2011-12—with the brunt borne by ELICOS and VET.

An Australian English language school that operates interesting "Teach and Travel" programmes in China and Vietnam has received official endorsement from the government of Vietnam. English Language Company (ELC) Australia signed an MOU with the government earlier this month.

Competitors try to speed it up expansion and buy schools already up and running with very different company cultures and they try to integrate them into their own group of schools. That is not the way we believe to be the best and most efficient.

The youth travel industry is set to double by 2020 according to youth travel consulting and development company StudentMarketing. The trend will be driven mostly by educational and experiential travel and offers a "huge opportunity" to providers, it claims. Last year 207 million trips were taken by youth travellers, roughly 40% involving education.

Thailand is preparing itself to become a hub for international schools and ELT once the ASEAN Economic Community is launched in 2015, officials have said. The demand for international schools and English programmes in Thailand has increased in the past 20 years.

EnglishUSA held its 5th Annual Professional Development Workshop in San Francisco last month - and used the occasion to host a live conference call with SEVP officials to further clarify the sector's understanding of what have been policy "grey areas".

Navitas, one of Australia’s biggest education providers, says it is on the road to growth as revenue and enrolment climbed in the first half of FY2013. The firm, which has large English language and pathway divisions, saw total group revenue climb 4% to AUS$355.4million with profits down just 1%.