L’AFT, AIFC qui deviendra AFTRAL au 1er janvier 2015, Promotrans et l’OPCA-TRANSPORTS formalisent une coopération initiée en 2013 au travers d’une convention de partenariat et poursuivent un objectif commun : mettre en synergie les actions des organismes pour le bénéfi ce du développement de la formation professionnelle continue auprès des entreprises du Transport Routier notamment.
Développer la formation initiale et continue en impulsant des démarches innovantes.
Par exemple, ils s’engagent sur des actions suivantes :
• Renforcer l’information, le conseil en formation et l’accompagnement de proximité des entreprises par une approche globale emploi/formation.
• Développer les parcours professionnalisant pour les demandeurs d’emploi et pour les salariés, en particulier en assurant la promotion des formations en contrats d’alternance.
• Promouvoir des actions collectives de formation au niveau national et régional.
• Adapter des projets spécifi ques et des formations innovantes (Handi-cap, E-Learning, développement durable, environnement…).
• Promouvoir le dispositif de la Validation des Acquis de l’Expérience (VAE).
• Simplifier les démarches administratives pour un meilleur service auprès des entreprises et optimiser la gestion des formations et la dématérialisation des échanges administratifs. Voir l'article...

Picardie
Un accompagnement RH opérationnel pour les TPE-PME : T-Diag
T-DIAG permet d’accompagner le développement des ressources humaines et d’évaluer les compétences internes mobilisables pour mener à bien un projet d’entreprise : recrutement et intégration d’un nouveau salarié, anticipation des besoins de formation et de compétences. Conçu en deux temps, T-DIAG comprend :
• un pré-diagnostic, effectué par un conseiller de l’OPCA-TRANSPORTS,
• un diagnostic approfondi - si nécessaire - réalisé par un consultant extérieur agréé et débouchant sur l’élaboration d’un plan d’actions.
Ce diagnostic est financé en partie ou en totalité par l’OPCA selon les tailles d’entreprises.
Il est encore possible pour les entreprises qui le souhaitent de bénéficier de ce dispositif en contactant sans plus tarder la délégation régionale de l’OPCA-TRANSPORTS.

Convention mixité voyageurs
La convention, signée en partenariat avec Pôle emploi et la Fédération Nationale des Transports de Voyageurs (FNTV Picardie), s’inscrit dans le cadre de la réglementation sur l’égalité professionnelle entre les hommes et les femmes et le développement d’actions positives visant à encourager une politique de l’emploi féminin au sein des entreprises de transport, notamment au poste de conductrice de transport en commun. Elle a été conclue pour une période s’étendant du 31 décembre 2011 au 31 décembre 2015. Elle pourra toutefois être prolongée par avenant. Ce partenariat porte sur la sélection conjointe des candidats en lien avec les besoins des entreprises, et sur la mise en oeuvre de parcours de préqualification individuels, en amont de la formation initiale visant l’obtention du titre professionnel conducteur en transports routiers interurbains de voyageurs en contrat de professionnalisation, qui sera couplé au contrat de mixité en cas d’emploi de femmes. Voir l'article...

By Barbara Kehm. If Germany has done it, why can’t we? That’s the question being asked by many students around the world in countries that charge tuition fees to university. From this semester, all higher education will be free for both Germans and international students at universities across the country, after Lower Saxony became the final state to abolish tuition fees.
It’s important to be aware of two things when it comes to understanding how German higher education is funded and how the country got to this point. First, Germany is a federal country with 16 autonomous states responsible for education, higher education and cultural affairs. Second, the German higher education system – consisting of 379 higher education institutions with about 2.4m students – is a public system which is publicly funded. There are a number of small private institutions but they enrol less than 5% of the total student body. More...

By Shaun Smillie. An academic journal accredited by the Department of Higher Education and Training has come under scrutiny after failing a peer review test.
The Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, published in Italy, has been called a scam but it appears on the CVs of several professors at Unisa as the publisher of papers authored by them.
This journal, owned by the Mediterranean Centre of Social and Educational Research, will publish an article only on payment by the author of a fee of $200 (about R2200). More...

By Michael Fitzpatrick. Japan’s simultaneous embrace of nationalism and cosmopolitanism is generating ambiguous signals from its education policy makers. They are rewriting textbooks along what they call “patriotic” lines, alienating their Asian neighbors in the process. But at the same time, they are promoting Japanese universities as globalized and open, in a bid to compete internationally. More...

So much for carefree campus life - a new study shows nearly half of Victoria University students are an unhappy bunch.
A survey of 5000 students revealed 45 per cent had poor to very poor emotional well-being - feeling depressed or unhappy - a sharp rise from 36 per cent last year.
Student Association welfare vice president Rick Zwaan said the results showed students feel alienated. More...

More and more Greeks are moving to Germany to complete their university studies in the hope of improving their chances in the job market. Radical cuts continue to threaten the quality of teaching in Greece.
Despite the quality of degrees in their homeland, an increasing number of Greek students are moving abroad to study. In Germany alone, between 2012 and 2013, the number of Greek students rose by 13 percent. In 2012, Germany's Federal Statistical Office totaled almost 6,000 Greek students, of which more than 1,100 had directly begun their studies in Germany. More...

By Gauri Kohli. The human resource development ministry has proposed the formation of a committee that will work on developing a framework for India-specific rankings. “Indian universities (and colleges) will be ranked in comparison with peer universities/colleges. Foreign universities/colleges will be included in this. The parameters and factors will be selected based on what is relevant for bachelor’s and master’s programmes, research programmes, and for different disciplines such as sciences, engineering, medicine, law, liberal arts, fine arts, etc. The Indian ranking system is proposed to be ready by next academic year,” says Professor Bhaskar Ramamurthi, director, IIT Madras. More...

GaucheChina's top education authorities have approved new regulations for nine top universities, which seek to increase the schools' autonomy, while observers have expressed concern about their effectiveness.
The nine universities include the country's top two universities, Peking University and Tsinghua University, the Ministry of Education announced on its website on Wednesday, adding that the newly established regulations will help the systematic reform of higher education and aid academic development.
Since 2013, a total of 32 universities have already seen their new regulations, which were drafted by the universities themselves, approved by the authorities. More...

By Quentin Fottrell. American students borrow twice as much as they did two decades ago and the total student debt mountain has increased fourfold over that period. And women appear to be taking on more debt than their male counterparts.
The amount a typical borrower owes has more than doubled over the last 20 years, according to new analysis of government data (pdf) — “The Changing Profile of Student Borrowers” — by the non-profit Pew Research Center. In 2012, students carried a median loan amount of $26,885 versus $12,434 two decades ago. More...