Kolkata: Kapil Sibal, the minister for human resource development, government of India and Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, the United States of America, reaffirmed the strategic partnership between India and the United States for meaningful dialogue, cooperation, and engagement in the field of higher education, and launched a new phase in this partnership. This was in lieu of the considerable progress achieved in bilateral educational relations following the visits by Dr Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India to the United States in 2009 and president Barack Obama to India in 2010.

Sibal and Clinton launched the expanded US-India higher education dialogue as an annual bilateral event to map out strategies for partnership in the field of education between the two countries. The dialogue will identify areas for mutually beneficial exchanges and provide a platform for intense and meaningful collaboration among academia, the private sector, and the government on both sides.

The plan is for the dialogue to be held alternately in the United States and India. The two leaders expressed satisfaction with the progress achieved in the Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative, launched in 2009, under which both sides have invited proposals by November 1, 2011, to be reviewed by a joint working group for academic awards in support of university partnerships.

The two leaders reiterated their strong commitment to the Fulbright-Nehru Programme and its contribution to leadership development and scholarly achievement. They also highlighted and encouraged the full array of collaborations directly between higher education communities, such as the Yale-India programme, for academic leadership and faculty development. Both leaders also expressed their support for the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum, which provide fresh impetus to academic collaboration in the areas of scientific research and technology development.

The two leaders lauded the continuing efforts by both sides to explore new avenues for collaboration such as the Indo-US Engineering Education Conclave, held in January 2011 in New Delhi, for strengthening higher educational institutions in the fields of engineering and technology and expressed the hope that more such opportunities for engagement would emerge in the future in other fields.

TOEFL for Australia Student Visas

TOEFL test is now an alternative English language test for students travelling to Australia. Chris Bowen MP, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Australia, has now accepted the test score equivalencies for the TOEFL test when compared to International English Language Testing System (IELTS) scores. The new score equivalencies is likely to come into effect on November 5, 2011.

“We are delighted that the Minister has agreed to the equivalency scores recommended by Educational Testing Service (ETS) for the TOEFL test as an alternative English language test for student visa purposes,” says David Hunt, vice-president and COO, ETS’s Global Division

The Minister approved the following TOEFL iBT scores to be used for student visas in Australia:

TOEFL iBT® Score	IELTS Band
31	4
32	4.5
35	5.0
46	5.5
60	6.0
79	6.5
94	7.0
102	7.5
110	8.0
115	8.5
118	9.0

TASMAC students may have to leave UK in 60 days

New Delhi: TASMAC London School of Business recently announced the closure of its London campus, which affected around 550 students of Asian and African origin, many among whom are Indians.

According to Vikram Singh, a student who paid for an MBA from the University of Wales and is studying in TASMAC London, “Though the school authorities have been claiming that we will be transferred to different colleges, nothing is likely to happen. The authorities are simply buying time.”

Singh, along with the other TASMAC students, have 60 days — according to the UKBA (United Kingdom Border Agency) policy — to decide on their future. Either they get themselves admitted to a new college, fulfilling the visa requirements, or else, they leave the country.

However, Tomas Llewelyn Barrett, communications officer, University of Wales, said, “The University of Wales is able to confirm that TASMAC London has closed. The University has been in discussions with other collaborative centres to arrange for the students on University of Wales programmes to transfer to programmes at these institutions (subject to UKBA requirements). If students do have to leave the country for any reason the University will offer the opportunity to transfer them on to a distance learning programme. Students also have the option of taking an exit qualification."

Elaborating on the situation, a UK Border Agency spokesperson in India said: “Earlier this year, we announced that from April 2012 all institutions wanting to sponsor foreign students would have to be classed as a Highly Trusted Sponsor by the UK Border Agency and would need to be inspected by an approved educational oversight body by the end of 2012. TASMAC London School of Business has indicated that it no longer wishes to sponsor foreign students to enter the UK and that it wishes to surrender its licence to do so.”

The spokesperson added, “These changes to accreditation and inspection requirements protect legitimate students and ensure that only those education providers with a proven track record in immigration compliance will be licensed to bring international students to the UK. In the event that a student is already in the UK and his or her sponsor surrenders its licence or has its licence withdrawn, the student will usually have 60 days to find an alternative education provider in the UK.”

While students keep waiting in apprehension, Sameer Dua, joint MD, TASMAC and TASMAC LONDON, stressed that TASMAC and the University of Wales are trying to ensure that students can continue their studies. “The University of Wales is seeking partner colleges where the transfer of credits can be done so that affected students can complete their degrees,” said Dua. TASMAC is a business education provider that started operations in Mumbai in 1990 and is headquartered in Pune, with a presence across Bangalore and Kolkata. It had set up a campus in London in 2008.

The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is one of the most important standardised tests that international students applying to American universities need to take. The reasons are simple: GRE scores are used by admissions officers to compare students from a large range of educational backgrounds on a common metric; the scores are also useful for assessing whether students can be given scholarships and various kinds of financial aid. Since the format of the GRE is changing on August 1, 2011, let’s take a closer look at the changes:

Overall interface
New GRE computer-based test will no longer prevent students from surveying the entire section of a test. Students are now allowed to examine, mark, review and tag questions. This will allow students to decide the sequence of questions needed to optimise the score. Students can also edit answers as long as they stay within each section of the test. In the mathematical ability testing section, an on-screen calculator will be provided, and students can put in numeric entries on the screen itself. Overall, it will be more user-centric and user-friendly

Verbal reasoning
In the verbal section, students can highlight sentences in a passage testing reading comprehension. This is helpful to enable closer focus on a key idea in that passage. A very important change is that the emphasis of the new GRE will be a greater focus on vocabulary as it is used rather than the usage of vocabulary in isolation. So students don’t need to stress out on memorising long vocabulary lists: rather than memorising, a better sense of the appropriate usage of a word in context will now be tested — skills that will matter in the real world of work and graduate studies in the US — and other parts of the world.

The new text completion section will test the ability to assess and make inferences based on what students have read in a passage. Given a reduced emphasis on individual vocabulary, students will need to interpret and evaluate the larger grain of what an author is trying to argue, so focusing on the meaning of the entire sentence rather than individual words will be tested. These are skill-sets that the ETS seeks to test. In particular, this move will ensure the relevance of the GRE for those going for studies at the postgraduate level and even for MBA programmes or business studies.

Scoring scales
This is a significant change in the GRE that merits attention. Unlike the existing 200-800 scale with 10 point increments, both the verbal and quantitative reasoning sections will be scored on a 130-170 scale, with 1 point increments. What does this mean? Basically what this change indicates is a more fine-grained differentiation between candidates.

The Statement of Purpose (or SoP) is an important component of the admissions process for American Master’s or PhD programmes. Since Indian Bachelor’s degrees take three years’ to complete, (hence, 12+3 = 15 years of education), we recommend that you complete 16 years of formal education to be competitive and eligible to apply to most US institutions.

The SoP is also a fairly difficult piece of writing to do at short notice. On the whole, an effective SoP requires a mix of self-reflection, succinct writing and subtle marketing.

Here’s what you can do to make your SoP stand out:

Basic Purpose
Begin with the end in mind. Your first paragraph is the most important: writing and rewriting it will polish it well. Communicate the basic purpose for which you are applying for a Master’s or PhD degree. A sincere, succinct and original first sentence or two is ideal. Cover the key reasons why you want to go to a graduate programme within the first paragraph. Develop your core ‘USP’ (Unique Selling Proposition) and eliminate every word and phrase that does not communicate purpose. Delete, revise and rewrite it all over again until it is accurate yet effective.

Analyse what motivated you. Now, move on to the motivations behind your purpose. Graduate school can be an intense experience, and more so at the PhD level. Faculty members on admissions committees are interested in the ‘why’ behind your ‘what’.

Rather than chronological descriptions of what you did in the recent past, dive into your thought-process and share what you learned. Ensure that each paragraph contains one or two key ideas developed coherently and logically that thematically progress to the next.


Your Motivation
Link your motivation to apply for a Master’s or PhD to your experiences at work or doing research. What did you learn while working or doing further research that prompted you to desire further education? American universities value students who have a real-world perspective, so if you have some years of work experience, do not hesitate to show what you learned while working.

Your contacts, software and soft people-skills, all would have developed in some ways while at work or doing research. Discuss these in terms of your learning and motivations. Perhaps you realised that you could use a Master’s or PhD to meet your medium-term and long-term goals — so discuss what triggered it. Reflect. Critique yourself. Share what you learned and how each step catalysed the next. Share your story.


Good Fit
Demonstrate ‘fit’. After discussing your motivations behind why you did what you did, you need to wind up. Begin the transition to the end of the SoP by making a case for why you are a good ‘fit’ for the programme. Be as specific as you can be here. If you’re applying for a Master’s programme, discuss the laboratory or research groups that you would be able to contribute to; if you’re a PhD applicant, name the faculty members whose work and research intersects with yours.

Perhaps your skills complement that of a professor with whom you want to work. Perhaps there’s a library, a research centre or some industry-university programme you are very interested in and could use for your career. Perhaps your prior training fits well with more advanced parts of the course curriculum – whatever it is, demonstrate how your being admitted would add value to the graduate student community. Specificity of ‘fit’ can be demonstrated by identifying and closely studying what you need and what the university you are applying to, can offer – thereby offering a unique synergy that will result in a win-win situation.