Student Exchanges Between U.S. and Other Countries Rise to Record

Student exchanges between the United States and other countries continue to expand, according to the Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange. The report, published last week, said the numbers of foreigners attending postsecondary institutions in the United States and Americans studying abroad were at record highs.

Released by the Institute of International Education, a nonprofit organization, the report said the number of foreign students at American universities and colleges in the 2012-2013 academic year rose 55,000 from the previous year to nearly 820,000.

Undergraduate students from China accounted for the biggest increase, 26 percent, raising the number of Chinese students of all levels at postsecondary institutions to 235,000.

The number of Americans going abroad for credit university courses rose to just over 283,000 in the 2011-12 academic year, the latest year for which those figures are available, a record, but still meaning that fewer than 10 percent of American students will have studied abroad during their undergraduate degree.

“We need to increase substantially the number of U.S. students who go abroad,” said Allan E. Goodman, the institute’s president. 

Center aims to bolster bilateral ties

Australia’s prime minister, Tony Abbott, and the Indonesian vice president, Boediono, officially unveiled the Australia-Indonesia Center last week in Canberra, the capital of Australia.

The center “will strengthen business, education and research links between the two countries,” Mr. Abbott said Wednesday. Canberra will provide 15 million Australian dollars, or $14 million, in funding for the center over four years.

The Australia-Indonesia Center will be based at Monash University in Melbourne, with branches at the Australian National University, in Canberra; the University of Sydney; the University of Melbourne; and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, in Australia.

Film institute’s scholarships to focus on Chinese culture

The American Film Institute has started a scholarship program for students to develop screenplays that could foster a greater understanding of Chinese culture, history and literature.

The program, the AFI/IDG China Story Fellowship, funded by Hugo Shong, chairman of the publishing company IDG Greater China, will pay for nine first-year students from the institute’s conservatory in Los Angeles to visit China for cultural research and to write a feature-length screenplay while completing their second year studies.

“Too many Americans only know Chinese culture through animated films like ‘Kung Fu Panda’ and ‘Mulan,”’ Mr. Shong said in a statement released on Wednesday. “By initiating this project with AFI, I am hoping that together we can jointly encourage a new generation of American screenwriters to produce more and different kinds of screenplays about China.”