Retrocessos no ensino superior patrocinados pelo governo com o nosso dinheiro - Augusto Nunes

As universidades do Brasil Maravilha são fábricas de luta com diploma

Blog de Augusto Nunes, 12/10/2013

Em agosto de 2010, no comício de inauguração de quatro prédios da Universidade Federal de Dourados, em Mato Grosso do Sul, Lula também reinaugurou a bazófia que se transformaria, de lá para cá, num dos seus mantras prediletos: “No meu último dia de presidente, eu vou olhar para mim e dizer que não tenho curso superior, mas fui o presidente que mais abriu universidade no Brasil”. Depende do critério utilizado.

Se o que vale é quantidade, o palanque ambulante tem razão. Na última década, o número de matrículas em cursos superiores dobrou. Entre 2011 e 2012, 867 mil brasileiros se formaram por alguma faculdade, pública ou privada.

Baseada no critério da qualidade, adotado por quem tem mais de cinco neurônios, uma reportagem publicada pelo site da BBC acaba de implodir a gabolice do maior dos governantes desde Tomé de Souza.

Sob o título "‘Geração do diploma’ lota faculdades, mas decepciona empresários", o texto enfileira informações estarrecedoras. Uma delas: segundo o Instituto Paulo Montenegro (IPM), vinculado ao Ibope, o índice de analfabetismo funcional entre universitários brasileiros chega a 38%. "Isso significa que quatro em cada dez universitários até sabem ler textos simples, mas são incapazes de interpretar e associar informações", espanta-se o redator da BBC.

“Também não conseguem analisar tabelas, mapas e gráficos ou mesmo fazer contas um pouco mais complexas”, prossegue o desfile de assombros.

“De 2001 a 2011, a porcentagem de universitários plenamente alfabetizados caiu de 76% para 62%. E os resultados das próximas pesquisas devem confirmar essa tendência de queda, prevê Ana Lúcia Lima, diretora-executiva do IPM”.

O desastre é ampliado a cada ano pela parceria entre faculdades federais de quinta categoria e cursos particulares criados pela indústria do ensino, com vagas de sobra para premiar com canudos inúteis a procissão de bolsistas que o governo financia com o dinheiro dos pagadores de impostos. O número de acadêmicos não para de aumentar. A taxa de ignorância no campus também.

Vista de perto, o que o pai do Brasil Maravilha chama de universidade é só uma fábrica de lulas com diploma de doutor.

Estudos na Alemanha: programa MGG

Programa de Capacitação – Managing Global Governance 2013 A GIZ – Cooperação Alemã para o Desenvolvimento e o DIE – Instituto Alemão para o Desenvolvimento, em nome do Ministério Federal da Cooperação Econômica e do Desenvolvimento da Alemanha (BMZ), têm a satisfação de informar sobre a abertura de inscrições para a 11ª edição do programa de capacitação MGG – Managing Global Governance, a ser realizado na Alemanha no período de junho/ julho a dezembro de 2013. Diante do crescente fenômeno da globalização, a paz, a prosperidade, o desenvolvimento sustentável e a estabilidade social podem apenas ser atingidos por meio da expansão da cooperação internacional. Desenhar e construir um sistema mais efetivo de governança global é uma das tarefas primordiais neste processo de cooperação entre países. Também é um importante requisito para se alcançar os padrões de desenvolvimento afirmados em acordos internacionais como os Objetivos de Desenvolvimento do Milênio, promulgado pela Organização das Nações Unidas. Neste cenário, torna-se indispensável que países como Brasil, China, México, Índia, África do Sul, Egito, Indonésia e Paquistão assumam um papel de destaque, tanto em contextos regionais como globais, para o enfrentamento de desafios mundiais – tais quais a redução da pobreza, o crescimento econômico e a sustentabilidade ambiental. O programa MGG está formatado em três etapas: Etapa Preparatória (no país de origem do candidato, com duração de 2 meses), Etapa de Capacitação (na Alemanha, com duração de 6 meses) e Etapa de Seguimento (no país de origem do candidato, com duração de 6 meses). A Etapa de Capacitaçãoinclui um período de formação e outro período de estágio em uma Organização Internacional ou da Comunidade Europeia. O público alvo a que se dirige o programa MGG é de jovens especialistas e executivos, bem como decisores que trabalham na administração pública, no setor privado ou instituições de pesquisa. Sua atuação prioritária deve estar orientada para políticas internacionais, relações internacionais ou cooperação internacional, em áreas como comércio, finanças, meio ambiente, segurança e desenvolvimento. Espera-se como resultado da capacitação que o participante desenvolva uma proficiência analítica, bem como uma capacidade para elaborar e moldar políticas ou projetos em sua área de atuação específica. Após concluído o programa de capacitação, o participante haverá também ingressado em uma rede internacional que reúne especialistas e executivos de instituições proeminentes de diversos países, dentre os quais México, África do Sul, Índia e China. Este programa de capacitação é integralmente financiado pelo Governo alemão, requerendo-se como contrapartida da Instituição parceira a autorização de dispensa do funcionário para participar do programa bem como o pagamento da passagem aérea. É indispensável que o participante seja fluente no idioma inglês. Nesse sentido, considerando a importante contribuição que a Fundação Getulio Vargas poderá oferecer ao debate internacional a respeito da Governança Global, temos a grata satisfação de convidar um representante que Vossa Senhoria possa por bem designar, a inscrever-se para participar do referido programa. Informamos que o prazo para recebimento das inscrições é dia 09 de dezembro de 2012, e que a seleção final dos participantes será feita pela sede da GIZ na Alemanha e comunicada oficialmente no final de dezembro de 2012. Em anexo encontram-se informações detalhadas a respeito do formato e metodologia do programa MGG, bem como a ficha de inscrição. Em caso de dúvidas, favor entrar em contato com Carla Pereira através do email: carla.pereira@giz.de. Nessas condições, agradeceríamos receber uma manifestação de interesse acerca da participação no programa MGG e reiteramos nossa disposição para esclarecer eventuais dúvidas e também apoiar ao longo do processo de candidatura e etapa preparatória. Atenciosamente, Carla Pereira GIZ no Brasil Gerente  Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH Rua Verbo Divino 1.488, 3º andar, Bloco A 04719 904 – São Paulo SP Brasil T +55 11 5187-5095 F +55 11 5187-5099 E carla.pereira@giz.de I www.giz.de

Education: can U.S. universities remain at the top?

Can U.S. Universities Stay on Top?

Michael J. Siverstein and Abheek Singhi

The Wall Street Journal, September 28, 2012

At the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi—one of the best engineering academies in the country—we met Shriram, a 21-year-old man who ranked 19 out of 485,000 on the school's very demanding entrance exam. We call him Mr. Number 19.

Shriram can tell you the date and time when he found out his test results. The exam—and the preparation for it—dominated his teenage years. He was singled out as a "big talent" at an early age, with an aptitude for mathematics and science. To get ready for the IIT entrance exam, he enrolled at a private coaching institute that prepares students with aggressive drilling in the major testing areas—physics, chemistry and math. Over those two years, Shriram estimates that he studied 90 hours every week.

When Shriram arrived at the IIT, he found a class filled with academic superstars. The faculty has high expectations. On the first math exam, his freshman class received an average grade of 30%. Shriram did poorly too but soon bounced back, sacrificing sleep so that he could study. "All my life I wanted to be here," he says. "I knew that if I could go to IIT, major in engineering, work and study hard, my life would be perfect. I would marry a beautiful girl, start a company, help my country advance and deliver on my family's hopes and dreams."

Both India and China have intense national testing programs to find the brightest students for their elite universities. The competition, the preparation and the national anxiety about the outcomes make the SAT testing programs in the U.S. seem like the minor leagues. The stakes are higher in China and India. The "chosen ones"—those who rank in the top 1%—get their choice of university, putting them on a path to fast-track careers, higher incomes and all the benefits of an upper-middle-class life.

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The system doesn't work so well for the other 99%. There are nearly 40 million university students in China and India. Most attend institutions that churn out students at low cost. Students complain that their education is "factory style" and "uninspired." Employers complain that many graduates need remedial training before they are fully employable.

For now, the U.S. university system is still far ahead. But over the next decade, there will be a global competition to educate the next generation, and China and India have the potential to change the balance of power. With large pools of qualified students coming of age, the two countries have made reforming their universities a top priority.

How far do they have to go? At the Boston Consulting Group, we have developed a new ranking to determine the educational competitiveness of countries: the BCG E4 Index. It is based on four Es: Expenditure (the level of investment in education by government and private households); enrollment (the number of students in the educational system); engineers (the number of qualified engineers entering the workforce), and elite institutions (the number of top global higher-education institutions).

The U.S. and the U.K. are ranked first and second, driven by raw spending, their dominance in globally ranked universities and engineering graduation rates. China ranks third and India fifth, largely on enrollment (Germany is fourth). The reasons for U.S. supremacy are clear: For one, it spends the most money on education, disbursing $980 billion annually, or twice as much as China and five times as much as India. It is also the most engineer-intensive country, with 981 engineering degrees per million citizens, compared with 553 for China and 197 for India.

American universities currently do a better job overall at preparing students for the workforce. The World Economic Forum estimates that 81% of U.S. engineering graduates are immediately "employable," while only 25% of Indian graduates and 10% of Chinese graduates are equally well prepared. "Chinese students can swarm a problem," a dean at a major Chinese university told us. "But when it comes to original thought and invention, we stumble. We are trying hard to make that up. We are trying to make technical education the grounding from which we solve problems."

In China, Peking University, founded in 1898, is generally ranked as the country's top school. One student there told us in a very serious tone: "Good luck finding a place in the library. You can't find a seat even at three in the morning."

Peking University is now part of an effort launched in 2009 to create a Chinese counterpart to the Ivies—called the C9 League. The objective is to attract the best graduates and faculty with an array of super-funded institutions. The schools recently received $270 million each in government funding, and they are also drawing back "sea turtles"—Chinese Ph.D.s from abroad—to lead the renaissance, with relocation bonuses as high as $150,000.

Though the C9 schools have the greatest potential to break into the global elite, Chinese officials also identified 100 key universities at the next level, where they have invested a total of $2.8 billion.

The difference in student quality between these tiers is often insignificant. The Gaokao is China's national educational test, given to 10 million secondary students to determine their rank and placement at university. The top scorers become national celebrities. But critics say that the test's emphasis on memorization, fact recall and processing speed can determine college admissions too arbitrarily. "I did not feel well the day of the test," one recent graduate told us. "As a result I placed in the top 10%, not good enough to get into the C9. I felt like my life was over."

Compared with China, India has farther to go. A senior dean at IIT Delhi said that he deals daily with shortages of equipment, poor pay for teachers and quotas that sometimes put students who can't read or speak English in the classroom. (The quotas are meant as a remedy for the caste system.) "We are underfunded, we have too few Ph.D.s on faculty, and we have a fifth of our enrollment taken by quota with no remedial programs," he lamented in his hot, open office.

One of the reasons for the underfunding is the relative weakness of India's central government, which accounts for only 15% of total expenditure on education. The 28 states that account for the balance vary greatly by wealth and infrastructure. But unlike China, India has significant private education, with nearly 200,000 private schools and 17,000 private colleges. The World Bank and private investors are pouring billions of dollars into education there, and the government plans to expand its best-known universities, as well as community colleges. The current five-year plan proposes higher-education investments of more than $18 billion.

Even with the current push, the combined higher-education resources of India and China will just begin to match the $32 billion endowment of Harvard alone. But success in these countries is based as much on attitude as on funds. The IIT's Mr. Number 19 represents a generation of driven, talented students who are intent on improving their lives. In one student's room at Peking University, the commitment to advancement is summed up with a phrase on a poster board: "If you work hard enough, you can grind an iron rod into a needle."

—Mr. Silverstein is a senior partner at the Boston Consulting Group. Mr. Singhi is a partner and director of its India consumer practice. Adapted from "The $10 Trillion Prize: Captivating the Newly Affluent in China and India," co-written with Carol Liao and David Michael, to be published on Oct. 2 by Harvard Business Review Press.

Education Strength

Which countries have the most competitive educational systems world-wide? The Boston Consulting Group's new E4 index assigns points in four categories, each equally weighted in the final score. Of the 20 countries ranked, here are the top 10.

Country	Total points	Enrollment points	Expenditure points	Engineering grads points	Elite university points
U.S.	237	25	73	48	91
U.K.	125	4	26	46	48
China	115	86	17	4	8
Germany	104	5	25	37	38
India	104	90	4	3	6
France	87	4	24	41	18
Canada	85	2	25	39	18
Japan	72	7	31	19	16
Brazil	38	17	16	2	3
Russia	32	9	10	10	3

Source: Boston Consulting Group analysis

A version of this article appeared September 29, 2012, on page C3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Can U.S. Universities Stay on Top?.

Iran: teocracia misogina? - BBC World News

Iranian university bans on women causes consternation

By Fariba SahraeiBBC Persian

Female university students in Iran have outnumbered men for the past decade

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With the start of the new Iranian academic year, a raft of restrictions on courses open to female students has been introduced, raising questions about the rights of women to education in Iran - and the long-term impact such exclusions might have.

More than 30 universities have introduced new rules banning female students from almost 80 different degree courses.

These include a bewildering variety of subjects from engineering, nuclear physics and computer science, to English literature, archaeology and business.

No official reason has been given for the move, but campaigners, including Nobel Prize winning lawyer Shirin Ebadi, allege it is part of a deliberate policy by the authorities to exclude women from education.

"The Iranian government is using various initiatives… to restrict women's access to education, to stop them being active in society, and to return them to the home," she told the BBC.

Higher Education Minister Kamran Daneshjoo has sought to play down the situation, stressing Iran's strong track record in getting young people into higher education and saying that despite the changes, 90% of university courses are still open to both men and women.

Men outnumbered

Iran was one of the first countries in the Middle East to allow women to study at university and since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 it has made big efforts to encourage more girls to enrol in higher education.

The gap between the numbers of male and female students has gradually narrowed. In 2001 women outnumbered men for the first time and they now make up more than 60% of the overall student body.

University entrance exams are highly competitive in Iran, with the number of female applicants increasing each year

Year-on-year more Iranian women than men are applying for university places, motivated some say by the chance to live a more independent life, to have a career and to escape the pressure from parents to stay at home and to get married.

Women are well-represented across a wide range of professions and there are many female engineers, scientists and doctors.

But many in Iran fear that the new restrictions could now undermine this achievement.

"I wanted to study architecture and civil engineering," says Leila, a young woman from the south of Iran. "But access for girls has been cut by fifty per cent, and there's a chance I won't get into university at all this year."

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In the early days after the Islamic revolution, universities were one of the few places where young Iranian men and women could mix relatively freely.

Over the years this gradually changed, with universities introducing stricter measures like separate entrances, lecture halls and even canteens for men and women.

Since the unrest after the 2009 presidential election this process has accelerated as conservative politicians have tightened their grip on the country.

Women played a key role in those protests - from the traditionally veiled but surprisingly outspoken wives of the two main opposition candidates, to the glamorous green-scarved demonstrators out on the streets of Tehran and other cities.

Some say it was the prominient role of women in 2009's protests that has unnerved Iran's conservative leaders

Some Iranians say it was the sight of so many young Iranian women at the forefront of the protests in 2009 that unnerved the country's conservative leaders and prompted them into action.

"The women's movement has been challenging Iran's male-dominated establishment for several years," says Saeed Moidfar, a retired sociology professor from Tehran.

"Traditional politicians now see educated and powerful women as a threat."

'Islamisation'

In a speech after the 2009 protests, the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for the "Islamisation" of universities and criticised subjects like sociology, which he said were too western-influenced and had no place in the Iranian Islamic curriculum.

Since then, there have been many changes at universities, with courses cut and long-serving academic staff replaced with conservative loyalists.

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“tudy art and design instead” student from 

Many see the new restrictions on female students as a continuation of this process.

In August 2012 Ayatollah Khamenei made another widely-discussed speech calling for Iranians to return to traditional values and to have more children.

It was an affront to many in a country which pioneered family planning and has won praise from around the world for its emphasis on the importance of providing families with access to contraception.

"People are more educated now and they are more concerned about the size of their families," says Saeed Moidfar. "I doubt that the government plans will change anything."

However, since the speech there have been reports of cutbacks in family planning programmes, and in sex education classes at universities.

It is not yet clear exactly how many women students have been affected by the new rules on university entrance. But as the new academic year begins, at least some have had to completely rethink their career plans.

"From the age of 16 I knew I wanted to be a mechanical engineer, and I really worked hard for it," says Noushin from Esfahan. "But although I got high marks in the National University entrance exam, I've ended up with a place to study art and design instead."

Over the coming months campaigners will be watching closely to track the effects of the policy and to try to gauge the longer-term implications.