US unis target the new Cuba

US unis target the new Cuba
DOW JONES DOW JONES JUNE 18, 2015 4:22PM

A lack of financial and technological infrastructure make recruiting
Cuban students tricky. Pic. Carlene Elwood Source: News Limited
Two popular university entrance exams will soon be offered in Cuba, a
development that signals US educational institutions' appetite for
recruiting prospective students in the newly opened communist nation.

Four Cuban students will sit on June 27 in Havana their TOEFL exam,
according to the non-profit Educational Testing Service, which
administers the test. ETS also said it plans to offer the GRE revised
general test, a graduate admissions exam that measures verbal and
quantitative reasoning as well as analytical writing, in Cuba as early
as October.

But the island nation's still-developing financial and technological
infrastructure present considerable logistical hurdles, the testing
service said.

The planned Cuba test dates come in large part as a response to demand
from US universities seeking to recruit Cuban students as relations
between the countries normalise, said Jose Santiago, GRE business
director at ETS.

The University of Washington's School of Law is among the institutions
eager to recruit Cuban candidates. The school actively seeks students
from transitioning economies around the globe, such as Afghanistan and
Myanmar, for its sustainable international development program, for
which students earn a master of laws degree, said Anita Ramasastry, the
program's director.

"It's not a far stretch to think that Cuba is another important country
in this larger dialogue," she said. The university requires graduate
applicants not educated in English to meet an English-language
proficiency requirement, she said. Yet there are

But some kinks need to be ironed out first. For one, registrants for
tests typically sign up via credit card, which few Cubans have. For that
reason, ETS expects that students' family members who are outside Cuba
or universities overseas will have to complete registration on their
behalf. All four Cuban students taking the coming English test in Havana
were registered from outside the country.

Universities can also provide vouchers to cover fees, allowing them to
bypass online registration. Also difficult is securing testing
facilities with sound computing capability, Mr Santiago said. The test
centre for next Saturday's English exam has six electronic workstations,
two of which will remain open in case a student's equipment malfunctions
and he or she must move to another station. ETS is "erring on the side
of caution".

Mr Santiago said he's currently working with two Cuban universities to
certify their computer labs as official test centres. There are
currently no planned dates to give the English test in Cuba beyond this
month's administration. It is too soon to evaluate demand from Cuban
test takers, Mr. Santiago said. "This is still very new; it's in its
infancy," he said. "There are still a lot of issues that need to be
resolved."

Source: US unis target the new Cuba | The Australian -
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/us-unis-target-the-new-cuba/story-e6frgcjx-1227404545062