Inaugural Meeting of the GRE® Asia Advisory Council Focuses on Trends in Graduate and Business Education in Asia

PRINCETON, N.J., June 18, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Prominent higher education leaders representing universities and organizations from 10 countries across Asia met with officials from Educational Testing Service (ETS) and representatives from the GRE® Board for the inaugural meeting of the GRE® Asia Advisory Council (AAC). The gathering was hosted in mid-May by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Seoul, Korea. The newly formed council is advising the GRE Board on matters related to postgraduate education in Asia, and is the second GRE advisory council to be formed outside of the United States, the first being the European Advisory Council.

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"The flow of graduate students into and out of Asia will become more significant in the years to come. The formation of the GRE® Asia Advisory Council is therefore timely," said Tan Eng Chye, Deputy President (Academic Affairs) and Provost, National University of Singapore. "The council, comprised of key thinkers and movers in graduate education in Asia, and the meeting in Seoul have exposed me to the trends, differences and best practices in the various Asian countries."

The GRE AAC is designed to give higher education representatives from Asia a formal channel to share information and provide their perspective to the GRE Board. This will enable the GRE program to enhance its business activities and communication with the higher education community in Asia. The GRE Board represents the graduate community and is an independent body that establishes policies for the GRE testing program, administered by ETS. The board oversees GRE tests, services and research in consultation with its committees.

"As the GRE Program continues efforts to meet the needs of institutions and educational organizations in Asia and around the world, forming the Asia Advisory Council is a critical step toward achieving this goal," said David Payne, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of ETS's Higher Education Division. "The Asia Advisory Council provides insight regarding the opportunities and challenges graduate and business schools in Asia are being faced with, allowing ETS and the GRE Program to expand support of the assessment needs of these programs."

The first meeting of the AAC focused on the major trends in graduate and business education and the role of assessments in this sector. "The presentations from different Asian universities were very informative and stimulating," said Sinn-wen Chen, Vice President for Academic Affairs, National Tsing Hua University. "Many departments and institutes in our university use GRE scores in their admission processes. With international students from so many different regions in the world, the GRE test serves as a very convenient and basic evaluation tool for selecting students."

The GRE AAC will meet again in Asia in 2013. For more information, contact [email protected].

About ETS
At ETS, we advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research. ETS serves individuals, educational institutions and government agencies by providing customized solutions for teacher certification, English language learning, and elementary, secondary and post-secondary education, as well as conducting education research, analysis and policy studies. Founded as a nonprofit in 1947, ETS develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests annually — including the TOEFL® and TOEIC® tests, the GRE® tests and The Praxis Series™ assessments — in more than 180 countries, at over 9,000 locations worldwide.

SOURCE Educational Testing Service