Foreign Academics Research Articles

ACCREDITATION IN HUNGARY AND THE HUNGARIAN ACCREDITATION COMMITTEE

A brief history of postgraduate education in Hungary after 1945 is given. The different types of degrees which were developed are presented, and a description is given of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The Law on Higher Education which was passed by the Hungarian Parliament in July 1993 has created a new university doctorate, equivalent to the PhD in the USA and the UK, to be awarded by universities having been accredited to do so. The process of accreditation is described, particularly the role of the interim Hungarian Accreditation Board (HAC), as is also the role of an Advisory Committee for HAC made up of distinguished foreign academics. As annexes, the announcement sent to all Hungarian universities inviting them to submit proposals for PhD programmes to be considered for accreditation and the recommendations of the Advisory Board, made in its meeting of 2 March 1993, are reproduced.

The International Symposium on Traditional Theatres of Asia: Beijing, 1991

In December 1991, two and a half years after the suppression of liberal dissent in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Theatre Association (CTA) held an International Symposium on Traditional Theatres of Asia in Beijing. The symposium attracted artists and scholars from such nations as England, Japan, Sweden, France, India, Bangladesh, Switzerland, the United States, North and South Korea, Myanmar, Iran, Cameroon, Mauritius, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Cyprus, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, and regions within the People's Republic of China, including Tibet and Mongolia. Eastern Europe was notable by its absence, reportedly because of economic and political turmoil in that region. There were 46 foreign and 58 Chinese experts attending; together with various nonparticipating observers, 141 individuals took part in the academic portion of the proceedings. In addition, numerous performers demonstrated their art at special performances. Over six hundred people were involved in the symposium in one way or the other. Recent reports in the Western press frequently had mentioned the nervousness of Chinese hardliners regarding the insidious ideas being smuggled into the country by freethinking foreign academics. Seen in this light, the symposium appeared to be a self-conscious attempt by the powers-that-be to allay such fears by demonstrating an apparent openness toward the visitors, who were treated with respect, friendliness, and hospitality. Politics is unavoidable in China, where even academics may display their party affiliations on their business cards. The subject of China's deplorable human rights record was on most visitors' minds and a visit to

On 'Governability' in Mexico

It is difficult to find an evaluation of the Mexican political system that is dispassionate and realistic. Mexican authors are constrained by powerful national traditions that restrict their range of discourse and by the wide embrace of official and officially-tolerated patronage systems which include a degree of censorship, sometimes none too subtle. Foreign journalists, however much they may know, generally abandon the task of overall interpretation because a broad synthesis is so hard to attain and, in any case, could require more effort from their readership than they have the right to demand. Foreign academics must therefore operate in the vacuum created by an international opinion that is (in relation to the importance of the country) remarkably uninformed, and a Mexican climate of opinion that is ultra-sensitive and to a significant extent manipulated by the national powers-that-be. It became almost a tradition in the 1950s and 1960s that visiting scholars with a liberal cast of mind would produce interpretations of the contemporary Mexican scene that were essentially optimistic and pro-government. Corruption, repression, and injustice received some attention in these studies, of course, but the dominant theme was social and economic progress, made possible by Mexico's remarkable record of political stability. The massacre of several hundred students in downtown Mexico City in October 1968 produced a revulsion against this type of interpretation during the 1970s-a change of tone made all the more drastic because the administration of President Echeverria (1970-6) itself launched vehement attacks on the record of previous administrations (notwithstanding the fact that Echeverria had been Secretary of Government in charge of internal security in 1968). The change in tone was also associated with wide intellectual trends, including a diminished confidence in the solidity of liberal values and interpretations, and the reappearance of academic Marxism after two decades of inversion.

Appraisal of Students—Evaluations by Academics Visiting the United States of America

This study sought answers to the following questions: 1. How do foreign academics visiting the U.S.A. evaluate U.S. students in comparison with students in their home countries? and, 2. Do these value judgments reflect a par ticular conception of university education or more specifically, a particular role-conception of university students? Utilizing three questionnaires especially constructed for the study, thirty-nine senior academics from seventeen different countries expressed views which provided some answers albeit tentative to the questions posed. The findings showed that there was significant agreement about certain attributes of students in the U.S.A. and considerable concensus about the role-conception of university students. Further the comparison of students at home and in the U.S.A. appeared to reflect these role-conceptions; the more an attribute was valued, the more likely it appeared to be recognized as a characteristic of the student at home. IN EVALUATING or appraising an educa tional system, its policies, practices, and even the characteristics of its students, the evaluator, more often than not, bases his evaluations on his own educational experiences. Nowhere is this more likely to be evident than in the case of the success ful academic who is prone to view the system which has produced him as full of virtues?as a system which, because of the requirements made on students and because of the excellence of learn ing, if not of teaching, excels all others. The evaluation of the educational programs by a visitor in an alien country is likely to reflect this predilection to view the system, through which he himself became a scholar, as full of virtues. At the same time, the very familiarity with his home campus, and its educational system gen erally, will necessarily play a part in any com parative evaluation of education at home and in the alien country. Counterbalancing the effect of individual differ ences in educational background, the evaluations of a foreign educational system may be influenced by the tendency of teachers generally to have similar expectations of their students. Thus, it is often claimed that university teachers throughout the world are alike in their role-definitions1 both for themselves and for their students. In addition, concensus in evaluating some educational prac tices of a foreign country is also likely, since the actual characteristics of the system being evalu ated will be reflected in the appraisals made. Thus, in appraising some aspects of the educa tional system of the United States of America, we might expect some homogeneity in attitudes of foreign scholars, even though their educational experiences might make them prone to value dif ferent aims or outcomes, as well as different learning and teaching procedures. A recently held conference2 attended by senior scholars visiting the United States of America on Fulbright-Hays travel grants provided an oppor tunity to investigate how visiting academics view certain aspects of the educational system in the United States of America, and how these evalua tions relate to some of their educational preconceptions. More specifically, it provided an opportunity to ascertain how these visitors to universities in the United States viewed American students, and what their impressions were of some specific aspects of the learning and teaching situation in these universities. At the same time, we sought to assess the individual's frame of reference from which these evaluations derived; i.e. the implicit values which affected the visitor's appraisal of some aspects of American education. To this end, consideration was given to the importance the visiting scholar attached to various modes of be havior and to different characteristics of students in the learning situation. These value judgments were viewed as providing, in an albeit tentative form, some indication of the scholar's role definition of a university student and of his atti tudes to education generally.

Foreign Academic Circles

Foreign Academic Circles

Moral Codes of American and Foreign Academic Intellectuals in an American University

Moral Codes of American and Foreign Academic Intellectuals in an American University

Foreign Academic Circles

Foreign Academic Circles

Foreign Academic Circles

Foreign Academic Circles

Foreign Academic Circles

Foreign Academic Circles