Free Listening English lessons

College Guide Aims to Help Students Avoid a ‘Thin Education’

January 31st, 2010 at 08:35am Under Education report

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

A new college guide in the United States compares educational requirements in seven subjects. These include math, science, writing and United States history or government. The other subjects are economics, foreign language and literature.

The free online guide is from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. The council is a nonprofit group that supports liberal arts education.

Its president, Anne Neal, says these areas of knowledge are needed to succeed in a twenty-first century society and an increasingly connected world. Yet she told VOA’s Faiza Elmasry it was surprising how many students can graduate with, in her words, a “thin education.”

Forty-two of the one hundred colleges and universities surveyed received the lowest marks. This meant they required two or fewer of the seven subjects. Five schools received a top grade for requiring six subjects. These were Brooklyn College in New York City, Texas A&M, the University of Texas-Austin, West Point and the University of Arkansas.

Robert Costrell is a professor of education reform and economics at the University of Arkansas. He says many, if not all, of the top American colleges once had a core curriculum — a set of courses required for all students.

But over the years, many have dropped these requirements. Or they have “watered them down,” Professor Costrell says, into what became known as distribution requirements. This system lets a student choose from a number of different courses to satisfy a requirement.

ROBERT COSTRELL: “And in many cases these courses went too far, I would say, towards the fluffy treatment of serious material, and students could satisfy their requirement by taking such courses.”

Professor Costrell says schools should not only re-examine what they teach. They should also measure what students have learned — for example, through some form of examinations or papers.

A new report this week from the College Board showed that college prices continue to rise. But Anne Neal from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni says higher prices do not guarantee a better general education. In fact, the group found that the higher the tuition, the more likely that students have to develop their own general education.

The college guide is on the Web at whatwilltheylearn.com. Anne Neal says her group is surveying more colleges. The hope, she says, is to discover what college graduates have really learned, and how ready they are to compete in the global marketplace.

And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report. I’m Steve Ember.

By admin 3 comments

Foreign Student Series: What SEVIS Means to You

June 27th, 2009 at 02:05am Under Education report

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

We are now ten weeks into our Foreign Student Series on higher education in the United States. So far we have talked about planning for school and about subjects like online education and diploma mills.

Last week the subject was getting a travel visa. Today we discuss something else that every foreign student needs to know about: SEVIS. SEVIS is the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System.

More than nine thousand American colleges, universities and exchange visitor programs are required to use this electronic system. It links them with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in the Department of Homeland Security.

The terrorist attacks in two thousand one led to the creation of the department. But SEVIS was being developed even before the attacks as a way to improve record keeping on foreign students in the United States. Some of the September eleventh hijackers entered the country on student visas.

With SEVIS, a school enters information about a student. The system lets the school know when the student has arrived. The school must then provide reports on whether or not the student is attending classes. Students who violate the terms of their visa can be expelled from the country and may be denied future entry.

Two examples of violations are failing to begin classes by the required date and working at a job without permission. Other violations are not attending classes full time and not leaving the country after completion of studies.

SEVIS currently lists more than one million active, nonimmigrant students and exchange visitors and their dependents.

Students and exchange visitors are charged fees to help pay for the system. The fee for students increased to two hundred dollars in September. This is the visa application charge we talked about last week.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement says the fee must be paid before going to an embassy or consulate for the visa interview.

All the information you need to know about SEVIS can be found on the Internet at ice.gov. That’s i-c-e dot g-o-v.

And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Next week: how to begin applying for admission to an American college or university. All of our reports are online at voaspecialenglish.com. Click on the Foreign Student Series link at the bottom of the page. I’m Steve Ember.

By admin Add comment