Report online: ACA study on perceptions of European higher education
Monday, June 12 2006 @ 06:06 PM PDT

The Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) has just released the results of its study "Perceptions of European higher education in third countries". The study, completed in Dec 2005, investigated how Europe and its higher education are perceived by students and other stakeholders in non-European countries. Its ultimate aim was to establish if and how it would be possible to market European higher education, and to identify the key messages and possible delivery mechanisms for a 'European higher education brand'.
The most important results of the report arethe following:
- Respondents saw a clear lack of information on study opportunities in Europe.
- Europe is viewed as a union in an economic and political respect, but not in terms of higher education. When it comes to higher education, the perception focuses on the continent's individual countries, and mostly on the larger ones.
- Europe's higher education institutions received good marks. But on a number of issues, such as prestige of institutions, labour-market acceptance of qualifications, and dynamism and innovation force, it came out second to the US.
-The most important factors influencing the decision for a destination were quality of education, reputation and prestige of the institution and of the degrees earned, as well as affordability, and safety.

European citizens in favour of a European Energy policy
Thursday, April 13 2006 @ 07:24 PM PDT

Eurobarometer survey

A majority of EU citizens (47%) would prefer European level decisions on the new energy challenges such as energy supply security, growing energy consumption and climate change, 37% and 8% prefer energy decisions on a national or local level respectively. This is one of the conclusions of a Eurobarometer poll presented at 24/1/2006 by Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs.

Those people asked would choose renewable energy and R&D as the means to tackle such problems and are willing to learn how to use energy more efficiently. “The message from the citizens is a clear one – energy is a concern for all Europeans and people expect clear and concrete actions on all political levels. Europe needs a real energy policy focused on security of supply, competitiveness and sustainability” said Commissioner Piebalgs.

The 4th World Water Forum concludes...
Thursday, March 23 2006 @ 04:17 PM PST

Mexico, 22 March 2006: The 4th World Water Forum (4WWF), after one week of work, convening almost 20 000 people from 149 countries, ended with a call on the governments of the world to reaffirm their political will and take on concrete commitments to make headway in solving problems related to water and sanitation. The 4WWF gave emphasis on "Local Actions for a Global Challenge"; 1 600 local actions were presented by 320 organisations
in 205 sessions.
Read the full text of the Press Release

Euro teachers ranked on fairness
Monday, February 27 2006 @ 10:59 AM PST

Most teenagers surveyed in a European poll said that their teachers treated them fairly.
(Based on a BBC publication dated 12/02/06)

A study by education experts at York University revealed that British pupils were the most likely to say that their teachers treated them fairly in marking work. Pupils outside the UK were in favour of teachers devoting extra time to less able students. More than 5,000 pupils aged 13 and 14 were polled in France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the UK.

The study was aimed at finding out what teenagers thought of their education systems and, in particular, whether they thought they were fair. About three-quarters of pupils in each country thought their teachers treated them fairly. Students in Britain, however, were more likely to say they got fair marks (82%) - compared to 64% in Italy, 72% in France and Spain and 73% in Belgium.

Latest developments about the UNECE Strategy on ESD
Monday, February 20 2006 @ 01:48 PM PST

Latest developments about the UNECE Strategy on ESD

• The first organizational meeting of the UNECE Steering Committee and of its Bureau, chaired by Greece, took place on the 14th of December 2005 and its report is available through UNECE website (www.unece.org). The next meeting of the Bureau will take place on 23 February 2006 in Geneva. As mandated by the Steering Committee, the Bureau will focus its discussion on the preparation of the high-level segment on ESD to be organised back-to-back with other sessions of the Belgrade 6th Ministerial Conference "Environment for Europe" (October, 2007).
• The Expert Group on Indicators continues its work on the set of indicators on the effectiveness of the implementation and the process of the Strategy. Its 3rd meeting will take place on 11-13 March 2006 in Vienna.
• In a short time period the provisional list of the Focal Points of the Strategy will be uploaded on UNECE website. Furthermore, many other kind of information can be found at the website about the process of the Strategy as well as the text of the Strategy in many languages and namely, Arabic, Albanian, Chinese, Czech, English, French, German, Italian and Lithuanian, Russian, Spain.