NanoAdventure Project from Unicamp awarded

NanoAventura: Prêmio Mercosul de Ciência e Tecnologia

The World View: Further Reflections on the Brazilian Mobility Program

Full article publised at the blog “The World View” from “Inside Higher Education”. See it HERE.

A recent blog by Luciane Stallivieri about the ambitious Brazilian mobility program of college students (Brazil’s Science Without Borders Program, May 31, 2015) hit the nail on the head regarding several issues in this debate. Although the numbers are really impressive for a four-year-old program, Sallivieri mentioned several problems, including the selection of students, the language barriers and the lack of proper evaluation of the outcomes of the program.

These reflections resonate with a recent report on international mobility programs from eleven countries, commissioned by the British Council (UK) and the DAAD (Germany), that indicates that the results of the scholarships are not adequately monitored. The study was led by Prof. Philip Altbach of Boston College (USA), and the GO Group, and had the support of experts from eleven countries — Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. The study examined the motivations behind the national mobility programs, the size of the programs, how they were funded and managed, how students were selected, and how programs were evaluated. The full study (The rationale for sponsoring students to undertake international study: an assessment of national student mobility scholarship programmes) can be downloaded at:http://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/britishcouncil.uk2/files/outward_mobility.pdf.

Generally speaking, the study shows that many countries recognize the importance of international exchange to strengthen education and science and technology systems, and have launched mobility programs (of greater or lesser magnitude) towards this objective. In general, most of these countries seek to protect that investment by requiring that students return to their home countries for a given number of years after completing study abroad. However, there are very few examples of countries that monitor and routinely assess the impact and effectiveness of their scholarship programs abroad. There are no concrete data on student performance during their training abroad, on any change in performance after their return, on the perception of faculty of the possible benefits (academic, motivational, change of perspective), or the impact on job opportunities.

In addition, another interesting finding is that most programs do not have any follow-up programming to collect data that might improve the program in the future or facilitate the effective engagement of students returning to their country of origin. The study suggests that programs would maximize their impact if they had clearer objectives and took fuller advantage of the experience of returning students. The report clearly shows that most of the countries responsible for the scholarships schemes have not yet conducted studies to measure tangible benefits of mobility and generally limit outcomes measures to the number of scholarships and geographic breadth of the placements. It is essential that more comparative studies be carried out, so that countries can learn from best practices as well as the mistakes and successes of others. It would be interesting to build indicators related to the specific objectives of each program to analyze more consistently the impact of these public policy initiatives.

As soon as the “Science Without Borders” program was launched in 2011, I wrote an opinion article with some criticisms (see “Brazil Seeks Academic Boost by Sending Students Abroad“). At that moment, I raised several points:

  • The challenge of finding enough qualified students, with minimum language requirements, capable and willing to travel abroad and study in top world universities.
  • The importance to extend the program to other fields of knowledge (beyond STEM fields).
  • The diplomatic problems with long-term HE partners, such as Portugal, causing some negative reactions.
  • The unbalanced character of the program that should really be an exchange mobility program, with reciprocity from the counterpart university to support and stimulate their students to perform academic study in Brazil. This would be extremely beneficial to Brazilian universities to boost their incipient internationalization process.
  • The issue of further planning and discussions concerning priorities for spending public money in overseas universities.

Unfortunately, most of these “predictions” have happened, and were enhanced by others, including the elitist character of the initiative that obviously privileged students with higher socio-economic background (better previous education, language skills, etc). Other problems appeared in the implementation process, with the placement of students, delays in the scholarships, and lack of communication with the home Universities. It is not clear yet how the academic grades are being interpreted by the Brazilian universities, and there are no figures regarding completion or dropout rates, distribution of students to different universities, or other important statistics that should be available to the public considering this huge public investment.

Finally, with the economic crisis that is now taking place in Brazil, there is a feeling among the scientific community that financial resources to the science and technology sector were redirected to the Science without Borders program, now suffering from a shortage of necessary investment.

There is no doubt that the Science without Borders program has produced many benefits, as mentioned in the Luciane Stallivieri essay. However, many problems must be addressed by the Brazilian government in the next phase of the program in order to make it more manageable, provide a better return for Brazilian society, and finally, to gain credibility among global partners and within the domestic higher education and science and technology sectors.

 

U.S. For-Profits in Brazil

Elizabeth Redden wrote a very interesting article at Insider Higher Education:

U.S. For-Profits in Brazil

Business is booming in Brazil for DeVry Education Group, an Illinois-based, publicly traded for-profit education company.

DeVry reports that it enrolls more than 58,000 degree-seeking students in Brazil, plus another 53,000 students in test preparatory programs there. According to the company’s latest earnings report, released in April, revenue for DeVry’s Brazil division grew by 38.8 percent over the previous year, while it declined by 15.7 percent for the flagship DeVry University campuses located across the U.S. The company isshutting down 14 of its U.S. campuses.

As U.S.-based for-profit education companies continue to face stricter regulations and slumping enrollments and revenues at home, some are venturing abroad in the name of diversification, with Brazil being a main destination.

“It represents a growth area and it also represents an escape from the regulatory environment in the U.S. that has proven so difficult for for-profits to adjust to,” said Kevin Kinser, the chair of the department of educational administration and policy studies at the State University of New York at Albany and an expert on for-profit higher education.

Kinser said he’s struck by the ways in which the for-profit higher education industry in Brazil resembles that of the U.S. a decade ago. “The idea that for-profits are an innovative way of giving access to populations, that there is a very encouraging policy environment in terms of providing different forms of federal aid for students, that kind of excitement and enthusiasm, [the sense that] this is a growth industry, reminds me a lot of what we saw here 8 or 10 years ago,” he said.

“There’s also a sense that things might not be able to keep going,” Kinser continued — a sense of, “wait a minute. Is this really how we want to spend our public money? Is the expense of education something that we need to get our heads around? What sort of loan returns are we getting? Some of those questions are beginning to be asked in Brazil.”

Balancing Access and Quality

The for-profit sector is a much bigger part of the higher education system in Brazil than it ever was in the U.S.

An analysis by Dante J. Salto published in the journalInternational Higher Education says that Brazil’s for-profit colleges enroll about a third of all students in higher education. The for-profit sector, which predominantly enrolls students in social science, business, law, education and health care-related fields, absorbs demand that the public higher education system lacks the capacity to meet, and is seen as an important player in helping Brazil move toward its policy goal of dramatically increasing higher education participation rates. The proportion of Brazilian 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in higher education (the country’s net enrollment rate) is only in the teens, while the gross enrollment rate, which takes into account students of all ages, stands at around 30 percent.

Describing the evolution of the higher education landscape in Brazil, Simon Schwartzman, a senior researcher at the Institute for Studies on Labor and Society, in Rio de Janeiro, and the author of several books on education in Latin America (and an Inside Higher Ed blogger), noted that the relatively small public sector attracts the country’s top students. Meanwhile, the private sector — which between not-for-profit and for-profit institutions enrolls about three-quarters of students in Brazil — has expanded to accommodate those who can’t get into the public universities. Legislation in the 1990s allowed private universities to declare themselves for-profit — before that they technically couldn’t be — and the growth of the sector since then has been fueled by governmental programs. These include PROUNI, which offers tax breaks to institutions enrolling low-income students on scholarships, and a subsidized federal loan system known as FIES.

But with Brazil’s economy in the midst of an economic downturn, the government announced changes last winter to cut back on the FIES loan program and impose stricter eligibility requirements. Schwartzman said the changes have dampened expectations for the continued growth of for-profit colleges. “The idea that enrollment will continue to expand and it will be subsidized… this equation doesn’t work anymore,” he said, adding that he expects enrollments will be stagnant over the next few years.

Others are optimistic about continued growth. The largest for-profit education company in Brazil, Kroton, which enrolls more than a million undergraduates, created its own private loan system for students ineligible for FIES and reported continued growth in its undergraduate student population (up 7 percent) in its most recent quarterly report, released in May. “Even with this restriction, with this, let’s say, not clear regulatory framework, we are planning to open 100 new campuses in the next five years; we have 130 today,” said Carlos Lazar, the company’s investor relations officer.

“We are going to be almost doubling the number of campuses that we have in the country. Additionally we’re also going to be opening more than 448 new distance learning centers. We have today 726.”

Mohammed Khan, senior global education specialist for the International Finance Corporation, the division of the World Bank that focuses on private sector development, said he thinks the changes to the FIES loan system will ultimately serve to separate the higher-quality players from the rest. “The government’s aim is not to cut access but to balance promotion of access with promotion of quality,” Khan said. “They don’t want to be in a situation where the private sector is running amok” — where it is endlessly enrolling students who are subsidized by loans but don’t have the ability to complete their degrees.

Long-term, Khan expects growth to continue. “In a country with 196 million people with a 30 percent gross enrollment rate, you can see there’s huge opportunity, huge demand. The economy will bounce back at some point and begin to grow again.”

Brazil and Beyond

DeVry, which first entered Brazil in 2009, has since expanded its network in the country to encompass 11 institutions, including 5 acquired or established since 2014. But the company, which also operates two medical institutions primarily serving North American students in the Caribbean, is looking beyond Brazil. Steven Riehs, the president of professional and international education, said DeVry has nine countries on its target list: in Latin America, Colombia, Mexico and Peru; in Asia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam; in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia.

“We want a regulatory, political environment that we believe we can be successful in, that has clear criteria supportive of private education,” Riehs said. “We also look at the demand and the supply.”

The emergence of the middle class is another variable, Riehs said. “Everybody puts discretionary income toward education.”

The largest for-profit higher education company in the U.S., Apollo Education Group, also has been looking to expand abroad during a time in which enrollments at its flagship institution, the University of Phoenix, have declined from a high of 475,000 in 2010 to 213,800 this spring. “Global is the cornerstone of our diversification strategy,” said Mark Brenner, Apollo’s senior vice president for external affairs.

Apollo’s global subsidiary, which includes institutions in Australia, Brazil, Chile, India, Mexico, South Africa and the United Kingdom, earned $81 million in revenue in the second quarter of this year, an 18 percent increase over the year prior, while having an operating loss of $27 million — which Brenner attributed to investments the company is making overseas. “At the end of the day, we’re in a growth mode with Apollo Global and believe that investing in new programs and new schools that serve students globally is a long-term strong strategy for Apollo. So, you’re seeing the growth and you’re seeing us invest dollars into new programs in existing schools and into new regions.” Apollo’s biggest overseas unit is BPP, in the U.K., while its most recent acquisition, FAEL, is in Brazil.

Brazil is also the biggest single market for Laureate Education, a private education company with campuses in about 30 countries. Laureate reports that it enrolls about 200,000 students in Brazil. Unlike Apollo and DeVry, which even with their recent international expansions still derive the vast majority of their revenue from U.S. sources (86 and 76 percent respectively), Laureate has always had the bulk of its business overseas, with about 60 percent of its revenue coming from Latin America, 15 percent each from the U.S. and Europe, and 10 percent from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Laureate’s general approach has been to acquire and partner with institutions in countries that lack sufficient higher education capacity. “What an institution like Laureate does is to enhance the human capital of individuals, the human capital of communities, the human capital of countries and, in doing that, the capacity of people, the capacity of communities, the capacity of countries to generate income and wealth and therefore well-being is enhanced,” said Ernesto Zedillo, the former president of Mexico and the recently appointed presidential counselor for Laureate (Zedillorecently replaced former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who for five years was Laureate’s honorary chancellor).

Holders of higher education degrees in Brazil earn more than 2.5 times more than their counterparts with upper-secondary educations, a figure that’s considerably higher than the average 1.6 times wage differential across Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. Yet some question whether the expansion of for-profit education is the best way for countries with underdeveloped higher education systems like Brazil to achieve goals related to access and economic equity.

“Supporters of the trend towards more for-profit universities like to claim that this sector expands access. This may be true to some extent, but access to what?” Liz Reisberg, an international education consultant, wrote in an October “World View” blog post published by Inside Higher Ed. “For-profit higher education has the primary objective (of course) of generating profit.”

Marcelo Knobel, a professor of physics at the University of Campinas, in the state of São Paulo, and another Inside Higher Ed “World View” blogger, said that the expansion of the for-profit sector in Brazil has increased inclusion, yes, but “it is a second-class social inclusion, I would say, with poorer quality of programs.”

“We have still huge room to grow [enrollment], but the problem is how to reach this goal. Is it continuing to subsidize and to pay the private, for-profit companies or is it to expand public or private, not-for-profit colleges? This is a big, big discussion that is going on here in Brazil.” A problem, he said, is that the country’s public sector is undifferentiated and oriented around research universities, which are both expensive to operate and also free for students to attend.

On the one hand, Knobel said policies supporting the growth of for-profit colleges in Brazil have been important in increasing access in the short-term. “For these students who attend these courses, this has made a huge difference in their lives, because here in Brazil a higher education degree matters a lot,” Knobel said. But he wishes that the government would make parallel investments in the development of a vaster and more differentiated public higher education system. Imagine, he said, if some of the sums used for the PROUNI and FIES programs were devoted to establishing new teaching-focused universities or community colleges.

“We should try to make this happen,” he said, suggesting that without those kinds of investments Brazil will never shake its deep dependence on the for-profit education companies. “Otherwise, there’s no way out.”

International Higher Education: How much is a Full Professor worth? The challenge of attracting the best talent

Article published at International Higher Education, No. 81, Summer 2015. See complete article HERE.

There are many factors that motivate the pursuit of an academic career, including academic freedom, prestige, stability, curiosity, among others. However, salary is also key to the future career choices of young talent. In the State of São Paulo, in Brazil, the salary of all public servants is currently tied to the salary of the governor, that, for political reasons, is kept at a rather low value. This fact is already having an effect on thousands of faculty members in the higher education system of the State. In this paper, I discuss how this salary limitation can influence the decision of young talent to follow an academic career and, put at risk a rather well developed higher education system. Furthermore, I discuss this issue in a broader context of strong regulation, a lack of competitiveness to support career development, and how this all undermines the commitment and morale of qualified professors.

Keywords

Academic careers; Academic compensation; Higher education in Brazil

FAPESP Week and the importance of science collaborations

Sorry, this entry is only available in Português do Brasil.

University World News: Widening access without lowering quality

See complete article HERE.

Higher education has experienced rapidly expanding enrolment worldwide for the past 40 years. This growth will probably continue for the next 20 years, with predictions of 400 million students in 2030, compared with 100 million in 2000.

Is it possible to make this massification more equitable, while ensuring minimum standards of quality?

Different countries and regions of the world are at different stages of higher education development. Gross enrolment ratios depend on a nation’s degree of economic development, social environment, history and policy priorities.

While many countries still struggle to guarantee access to higher education for a predominantly young population, other countries face the challenges of an aging population and-or a decrease of government support.

In the case of Latin America, for example, all countries still struggle with strong social inequality.

Increasing participation and degree attainment at the tertiary level are not only fundamental for forthcoming development but also key to social mobility, particularly for underrepresented groups – disadvantaged socioeconomic sectors, Afro-descendants and indigenous people.

Growing enrolment

There has been progress in the Latin American region in terms of student enrolments, growing from 1.6 million students in 1970 to 20 million in 2009. The gross enrolment ratio is around 30% in the region, indicating that there is yet room for further growth. In addition, growth remains uneven, mainly favouring certain segments of the population.

The funding sources of higher education – governments, students and families or for-profit ventures – have a strong influence on the quality provided. For example, there are many concerns regarding higher education quality when it is focused on financial return.

Unfortunately, the appetite for short-term financial gain often distracts attention from long-term planning, leading to a lack of investment in infrastructure, faculty qualifications and programme stability, thus jeopardising quality.

Additionally, although the for-profit sector has played an important “demand-absorbing” role, these institutions are often given too much latitude by national authorities for the quality of services they provide.

Success for all

Finally, massification inevitably presents the challenge of teaching a more diverse group, increasing the share of students with substantial gaps in their previous education. Higher education institutions must develop specific programmes to guarantee not only the access but the potential success of every student, reducing failure and drop-out rates. This must be done without compromising the quality of the final degree awarded.

Countries must implement policies that provide access to education for socially and economically disadvantaged sectors; that establish and ensure robust quality assurance and monitoring processes; and create a framework to encourage institutional diversity and innovative, equitable funding mechanisms.

It is difficult to imagine a comprehensive solution, but each different country must try to find a good balance between funding, access and quality in this complicated wrangle. A long-term, sustainable solution for the growth of the higher education sector is mandatory for the economic and social stability of any nation.

Marcelo Knobel is professor at the Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, or Unicamp, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil. Email: knobel@ifi.unicamp.br. This article was first published in the current edition of International Higher Education, number 80, Spring 2015.

See complete article HERE.

FAPESP Agency: Knowledge about science in the society in Latin America is dramatic

See complete article HERE.(in portuguese).

International Higher Education: Sustaining Quality and Massification: Is It Possible?

Full article published at International Higher Education, No. 80, Spring 2015.

Higher education has experienced rapid expanding enrollment worldwide for the last 40 years. This growth will probably continue for the next 20 years, with predictions of 400 million students in 2030 (compared with 100 million in 2000). Is it possible to make this massification more equitable, while insuring minimum standards of quality?

Different countries and regions of the world are at different stages of higher education development. Gross enrollment ratios depend on a nation’s degree of economic development, social environment, history, and policy priorities. While many countries still struggle to guarantee access to higher education for a predominantly young population, other countries face the challenges of an aging population and/or decrease of government support.

In the case of Latin America, for example, all countries still struggle with strong-social inequality. Increasing participation and degree attainment at the tertiary level are not only fundamental for forthcoming development but also key to social mobility, particularly for underrepresented groups—disadvantaged socioeconomic sectors, Afrodescendants, and indigenous people. There has been progress in the region in terms of student enrollments, growing from 1.6 million students in 1970 to 20 million in 2009. The gross enrollment ratio is around 30 percent in the region, indicating that there is yet room to further growth. In addition, growth remains uneven, mainly favoring certain segments of the population.

The funding sources of higher education—governments, students, and families, or for-profit ventures—has a strong influence on the quality provided. For example, there are many concerns regarding higher education quality, when it is focused on financial return. Unfortunately, the appetite for short-term financial gain often distracts attention from long-term planning, leading to a lack of investment in infrastructure, faculty qualifications, and program stability, and thus jeopardizing quality. Additionally, although the for-profit sector has had an important “demandabsorbing” role, these institutions are often given too much latitude by national authorities for the quality of services they provide. Finally, massification inevitably presents the challenge of teaching a more diverse group, increasing the share of students with substantial gaps in their previous education.

Higher education institutions must develop specific programs to guarantee not only the access but the success of every student, reducing the failure and dropouts rates. This must be done without compromises to the quality of the final degree awarded. Countries must implement policies that provide access to education for socially and economically disadvantaged sectors; that establish and insure robust-quality assurance and monitoring processes; and that create a framework to encourage institutional diversity and innovative, equitable funding mechanisms. It is difficult to imagine a comprehensive solution, but each different country must try to find a good balance between funding, access, and quality in this complicated wrangle. A long-term, sustainable solution for the growth of the higher education sector is mandatory for the economic and social stability of any nation.

Complete article HERE.

The World View: Will Professors Teach Differently in 10 Years?

Unfortunately, my guess is that the answer to this question is a sound “NO”. Despite continuous claims of a revolution in classroom teaching strategies, the advent of massive on-line open courses, and the huge expansion in the use of technological devices (cell phone, computers, tablets, etc), in most higher education institutions (HEIs) around the world traditional lecturing endures. It will probably continue this way for many years to come, because to do otherwise requires a change of paradigm for hundreds of thousands of instructors, HEIs tradition and culture, and every aspect of institutional operation (research grants, hiring and promotion processes, etc).

Of particular concern is the impact of this inertia on the so-called STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), considered fundamental for the sustainable development of any nation. There are extensive data demonstrating a troubling lack of interest in STEM undergraduate study, and only a small fraction of the students enrolled finish a STEM degree. It is too common to have a high failure rate in basic mathematics, physics and chemistry courses, and too easy to blame the poor performance on previous instruction at the basic school levels. Weak prior education is indeed a reality that has resulted in a need for remedial programs at many universities. However, there is a substantial share of responsibility to be allocated to professors, who usually don´t accommodate their teaching strategy to address the needs of the students they are teaching, and who ignore scientific evidence substantiating a clear improvement in student performance when novel methods are employed in the classroom.

A recent meta-analysis investigation of 225 studies showed that the average failure rate of 34% with traditional lecturing decreased to 22% with “active learning”; performance by students on comparable tests improved by about 6% in active learning sections (See S. Freeman et al. PNAS 111, No. 23, p. 8410, 2014). Nobel Prize winner Prof. Carl E. Wieman commented that “this meta-analysis makes a powerful case that any college or university that is teaching its STEM courses by traditional lectures is providing an inferior education to its students” (C.E. Wieman, PNAS, 111, No. 23, p. 8319). Wieman, comparing this phenomenon to the discovery of antibiotics, also argues that “in undergraduate STEM education, we have the curious situation that, although more effective teaching methods have been overwhelmingly demonstrated, most STEM courses are still taught by lectures – the pedagogical equivalent of bloodletting”. Why is this the case, and why is it so difficult to change?

Faculty members, as any other profession, are driven by a set of incentives, which range from personal achievements (recognition, different levels of influence, etc.) to more philanthropic goals (understanding nature and the universe, solution of a health or social problem, provide a good quality teaching, etc.). There are many parameters that are, or should, be considered in the career development of a professor, which can be roughly separated in terms of research, teaching and services to community. Generally speaking, research has, by far, more weight in faculty evaluation and rewards than the other activities. Besides being easier to evaluate (number of papers, impact factors, etc.), it is usually the most visible aspect of academic scholarship and performance. It takes a long time and effort to prepare a good lesson for an undergraduate course, especially if one has to develop new teaching strategies by designing an active class session. It is both easier and quicker to turn to the yellowed notes of past lectures or to a Powerpoint presentation that took a long time to prepare some years ago. Furthermore, many professors do not recognize the necessity for change in their classroom. They simply keep teaching the way they learned, without necessity or justification to change their approach. The universities must not only reward and promote innovations in the teaching methodologies, but must also provide teacher development programs, in order to cultivate and support new educational approaches.

Inevitably, this will change slowly, if it happens at all. This is a critical challenge for the next decade. Let the revolution start!

See the original post HERE.

RSC Advances: Unusual magnetic damping effect in a silver–cobalt ferrite hetero nano-system

The static and dynamic magnetic response of the newly synthesized CoFe2O4–Ag hetero nano-system showed significant enhancement in the effective energy barrier and reduction of the magnetic hardness of CoFe2O4 upon interaction with non-magnetic Ag as compared to neat CoFe2O4. The observed magnetic properties of CoFe2O4–Ag have been dissected in detail using the superparamagnetic Stoner–Wohlfarth and Neel–Arrhenius/Vogel–Fulcher models with the aid of micromagnetic simulations.

See complete article HERE.