More institutions and government agencies worldwide entice international students to enroll despite the pandemic restrictions imposed

IIT-JEE (IIT-Joint Entrance Exam) is set to go global with the Indian government planning to hold the exam in 25 countries, right from the US to Vietnam, simultaneously. In Kuala Lumpur and Lagos, these examinations were held last year. Earlier, with the cooperation of the Indian government, the IIT-JEE exams were held in 12 countries. The countries where the examinations will be conducted are the US, Australia, South Africa, Singapore, China, Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE, among others.

The US Department of Education has renewed Florida International University’s Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) grant. Growing to $1.33 million, the grant would have a total impact of approximately $2.7 million, with matching amounts. This grant is one of only 16 CIBER grants awarded to major universities across the country this year and, for the second time, granted only in Florida. CIBERs were created by Congress to enhance and promote international understanding and the nation’s capacity for competition. CIBER, home to the university’s College of Business (FIU Business), intends to continue to build and/or support more than 50 programs focusing on three themes: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Sustainability through Innovation, and student intercultural competence and competitiveness.

Some international students looking to attend post-secondary schools in Canada, and who had already started online learning with them, say they’ve been waiting months for Ottawa to approve their study permits, putting their education and lives on hold. “I have no words to express my feeling. I can’t even tell,” said Ravneet Kaur, who lives in Punjab in India. “You see we are suffering financially and there is emotional damage also because we have invested our emotions as well as our money.” Kaur was accepted to St. Clair College’s events management program and applied for a study permit in July 2021. She paid for and was able to take one semester of online courses last fall at the Windsor, Ont., school, which had adapted to online learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

As international student offices emerge over the last two years, we must ask ourselves where additional resources are needed to ensure we can minimize the impact the pandemic has had on international learners. The students I am writing about here are those who plan to stay in Canada after graduation under Canada’s post-graduation work permit program and/or who plan to apply for permanent residency once they are eligible. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s decided in mid-2020 to adjust the work permit program’s eligibility requirements so that international students facing difficulties getting study permits and traveling could continue their studies online from their home countries without negatively impacting their post-graduation opportunities in Canada. Without these students, Canada had something to lose too: a source of Canadian-educated and trained individuals who in 2021 accounted for around 30 percent of all new permanent residents.

To ensure a smooth transition for Indian students who have chosen Ireland as their next study destination, Education in Ireland, with the Embassy of Ireland and the Visa Office New Delhi, organized on-ground pre-departure briefings for Indian students for the academic year 2022-23. These in-person briefings were held in Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai, an official statement said. Representatives from Irish higher education institutes and visa and government officials were present to give crucial insights to students, it said. According to a press release, visa officials elaborated on the student visa process and shared key tips for a seamless application. In addition, accommodation options for students in Ireland were also relayed along with a presentation by the Irish government.

The Group of Eight (Go8) has advised policymakers on how Australia’s skilled workforce can tap into the ‘global talent pool’. A new policy paper by the Go8 has outlined the ‘essential decisions’ the incoming federal government must adopt to back Australia’s economic growth and higher living standards.  According to the group of universities, Australia’s local skills needs can leverage the relationship between research-intensive universities and their overseas collaborators to fill a gap.  Since the COVID-19 pandemic rocked the international student sector, Go8 CEO Vicki Thomson said, global competition for these skilled workers has increased.  “Australia is at a critical juncture with respect to skills needs – facing serious challenges to maintaining capacity in essential areas of workforce need, the engineering and medical workforce among them,” Thomson said in a statement.

The UNESCO World Higher Education Conference 2022 opened this week in Barcelona in Spain, reaffirming the importance of higher education as a public good and a human right, and underlining the need to promote local and global equity of university access. UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay pointed to major transformations of higher education since the previous UNESCO world higher education conferences in 1998 and 2009, noting a doubling in the number of students enrolled in the past two decades – to 235 million students – and this number is likely to double again over the coming decade.

A new law in Finland, which came into effect on 15 April this year, aims to reduce the red tape facing international students wishing to study in the country and seek employment upon graduation. The legislative changes, the government believes, have the potential to treble the number of international students in Finland. The changes to the law mean that international students and their families will be covered by a residence permit for their whole study period instead of having to renew the residence permit every year as they were previously required to do.

A team of officials representing the French Embassy in India visited Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat) on Saturday to discuss the possibility of higher education in the European country. During the meeting, which was part of a mission by Campus France and the French Embassy in India, the officials held discussions with K.N. Madhusoodanan, Vice-Chancellor of Cusat, on various projects for students, scholarships, faculty-student exchange, and academic collaboration with industry and commerce. They also deliberated on the plans to strengthen Indo-French cooperation. P.G. Sankaran, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, and N. Balakrishna, Director of International Relations attended the meeting.

Islamabad: Hopefully, Pakistani students will soon return to China to resume pandemic-hit education, said External Security Commissioner (Cross-Agency Working Group of China) Cheng Gouping on Thursday. “Limitations due to COVID–19 in China have been a downward trajectory. We hope that Pakistani students will soon be able to travel to China to continue their education,” Cheng Gouping told Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Rana Tanveer Hussain during a meeting here. The meeting was attended by a Chinese delegation and senior officials of the ministry. The minister said the relationship between China and Pakistan was deeper than the Sea and the two countries were iron brothers.

Plans are advancing at speed to create a new postgraduate degree specializing in the Paris Agreement on climate change in a bid to develop future leaders able to tackle the challenges of sustainability and advance transformative climate action, the UNESCO World Higher Education Conference (WHEC2022) in Barcelona, Spain, heard. Professor Shinobu Yume Yamaguchi, director of the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) in Tokyo, Japan, outlined the aims when opening the session at WHEC2022 on how higher education can accelerate climate action under the Paris Agreement.

JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia is participating in the Education World Forum 2022 in London, UK, under the theme “Education: Building forward together; stronger, bolder, better.”EWF 2022 brings together education ministers and professionals to address key issues and share challenges, solutions, learning, and success stories they have experienced during the coronavirus disease pandemic. Saudi Minister of Education Dr. Hamad bin Mohammed Al-Sheikh is heading a delegation representing Saudi Arabia at the four-day forum, which kicked off May 22.

Founded in 1921 by the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, Rosemont College is a private, coeducational institution rooted in Catholicism and welcomes people of all faiths. Rosemont College is located on a tranquil 58-acre campus in the historic residential neighborhood of Rosemont, Pennsylvania, 11 miles west of Philadelphia on what is known as the suburban Main Line. The area surrounding campus is both scenic and safe, with many options for shopping and dining within walking distance to campus. When students want to adventure beyond the local area, they can easily adventure into Philadelphia – the sixth-largest city in the United States – via the train stop just a few blocks from campus. Or they can travel to New York City, which is less than a two-hour drive.     

The brewing and fermentation industries play a vital role in the food industry, making a wide range of high-quality goods that utilize the production of the land-based sectors. The Bachelor of Science (Brewing and Fermentation) degree will make a graduate student highly employable in the brewing and fermentation industries around the world. With its core of science fundamentals, it will equip the student with skills and knowledge to design, analyze, and produce a range of fermented products such as kombucha, beer, cider, cheese, and yogurt, and to innovate new and high-quality products to meet the demands of existing and future consumers. In this course, the student will work alongside industry partners in developing a particular fermented product to develop valuable hands-on skills, learn the production principles, and gain experience. Lastly, a graduate student will be able to step into the fermentation or brewing industry after graduation or put up his or her own business.