28 octobre 2012

L’assemblée annuelle CPU/CGE sur le développement durable, qui s’est tenue mercredi 17 octobre à l’Ecole des Mines de Paris, a été l’occasion de présenter une initiative inédite: la première charte sur la Biodiversité spécifique aux établissements d’enseignement supérieur et de recherche. Un document élaboré conjointement par les deux conférences.
Cette initiative s’inscrit dans un contexte très riche: au niveau national, le gouvernement entend prendre un certain nombre de mesures dont la création d’une Agence nationale de la biodiversité d’ici fin 2012; au niveau international, les acteurs du domaine se sont réunis en Inde à l’occasion de la onzième conférence sur la diversité biologique. 
Engagées depuis plus d’un an sur ce sujet, la CGE puis la CPU ont adopté au mois de juillet 2011 la Stratégie Nationale pour la Biodiversité. Les Conférences ont ensuite constitué un groupe de travail pour adapter les orientations nationales au contexte propre aux établissements d’enseignement supérieur et de recherche.
A l’instar de la Stratégie Nationale de Développement Durable dont les objectifs sont déjà intégrés dans tous les axes du ‘référentiel Plan Vert’ des établissements d’enseignement supérieur, les objectifs de la Stratégie Nationale pour la Biodiversité peuvent être intégrés à la politique de l’établissement. Les objectifs de la charte vont bien au-delà de la simple gestion écologique des espaces du campus, et les outils proposés permettent à un établissement, s’il le souhaite, d’aller volontairement plus loin en abordant toutes les dimensions le reliant à la biodiversité.
La Charte biodiversité est composée d’un document d’engagement et de deux outils opérationnels accompagnés d’annexes. Ces outils sont spécifiques à l’enseignement supérieur, ils sont issus de la SNB, des travaux du groupe de travail CPU/CGE constitué à cet effet et de diverses consultations réalisées auprès des membres des commissions développement durable des deux Conférences. Les établissements ont jusqu’à la fin de l’année pour amender le projet de charte qui leur a été soumis le 17 octobre.

Mardi 23 octobre, le Parlement européen, réuni en session plénière à Strasbourg, a adopté le rapport de Charles GOERENS sur l’avenir de la politique européenne de développement, suite à la Communication de la Commission européenne, « Accroître l’impact de la politique de développement de l’UE: Un programme pour le changement » et sur laquelle le Conseil s’est prononcé le 14 mai dernier. Les principes énoncés dans le « programme pour le changement » qui seront retenus, seront ensuite déclinés de manière opérationnelle dans les règlements des instruments d’action extérieure de l’UE pour la période 2014-2020.
En adoptant ce rapport, le Parlement européen s’est notamment prononcé en faveur d’une année 2015 consacrée au développement, démarche qui a reçu le soutien d’Andris PIEBALGS, Commissaire en charge du développement.
2015 sera en effet une année charnière au cours de laquelle une réflexion profonde sur la suite à donner aux Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement (OMD) devra être menée. Charles GOERENS, a également rappelé qu’en consacrant une année européenne à la thématique du développement, l’UE saisirait une opportunité unique pour mieux faire connaître le développement et sensibiliser davantage les opinions publiques au combat contre l'extrême pauvreté dans le monde et aux grands enjeux humanitaires.

By Edith Fortunate and Esther Mwangi. The announcement by the Commission for Higher Education (CHE) that it plans to start ranking universities has elicited mixed reactions.
According to the commission’s new chairman, Prof David Some, the exercise, which will run for an initial pilot period of three years to give universities a chance to understand it, aims to improve university education in Kenya.
“Ranking is one of the ways to stimulate competition among universities, promote quality, enhance access, and elicit public confidence,” he said during an interview recently.
CHE, a government organisation charged with the responsibility of enforcing learning standards, will lead the process. The proposed rankings come at a time when Kenya is seeking ways to improve higher education standards which have been affected caused by overcrowded classes and inadequate numbers of teaching staff.
The perception of declining quality of education in local institutions is believed to be pushing more Kenyan students to foreign universities. In recent years, there has been a general perception, especially among employers, that the quality of higher education has deteriorated. Many institutions have established campuses and learning centres with little regard to the conduciveness of the environment.
The rapid expansion has also constrained resources, including lecturers, leading many institutions to yield to the temptation to hire less qualified personnel. The parallel degree programmes, driven by commercial interests, have attracted an unmanageable number of students and it is common for students to miss seats in lecture halls. Some learn while standing or sitting on the floor.
According to Prof Some, the ranking system is expected to identify and promote sensible quality parameters for both private and public universities. It is hoped that this will push universities to improve their standards in order to get good ratings.
Kenyan universities rely on international ranking institutions, such as Webometrics coordinated from Spain, to gauge their reputation in the continental and global higher education arena. However, the ranking by Webometrics is based on the Web presence of universities, implying that those with an elaborate website and good hits could be ranked above those with a not-so-impressive Internet presence.
Stakeholders say that this is not a realistic method as it leaves out crucial parameters for genuine assessment.
The CHE formula will seek to ensure that the appraisal will be based on the institutions’ learning and research impact, not merely size and number of courses on offer. Therefore, one of the key factors to be considered will be the reputation of the institution among employers, the quality of its facilities in relation to the programmes on offer, and its lecturer-student ratios.
CPS International, a research institution with an interest in education, prefers that universities’ uptake of information communication technology be given prominence in the ranking. This is to take into account the growing need for e-learning as the number of students in need of university studies overwhelm physical infrastructure, in addition to allowing distance studies.
The organisation’s lead researcher Mr Dann Mwangi says: “The first online university in Kenya was recently awarded a letter of interim authority to operate, and it is against this background that we have closely been monitoring ICT development in East Africa.”

By Curt Rice. How do centres of excellence influence the work of scientists?
Imagine being a minister in a government and having political responsibility for research in a whole country. Suppose you wonder how good your researchers really are. How can you find out? Some activities researchers do can be measured, so you do that: you measure, you count, you tally, and you end up with some numbers on your desk.
Of course, numbers alone won't answer your question; you need something to compare them with, so you give your minister colleagues in a couple of neighbouring countries a call. Unfortunately, those conversations leave you concerned that the performance of your researchers is weak by comparison....
These debates involve the use of pecuniary resources and autonomy, the use of human resources, and the professionalisation of leadership. More...

By Nicola Jenvey. South Africa’s Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande recently revealed that graduates acquiring tertiary education with assistance from the government-funded National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) owe R13.4 billion (US$1.5 billion) in unpaid loans – and about 20% of them have not repaid a single cent.
He proposes getting the South African Revenue Service involved by deducting money from defaulters' salaries, claiming that recouping the capital had become “a priority”.
By its own admission the NSFAS, in its 2011 annual report delivered to the Parliamentary Monitoring Group in February this year, the scheme is "not good at recovering loans". Only R638 million or 5% of the long-term loan amounting to R12.2 billion has been recovered.
Despite the debt repayment issue, Nzimande hails the NSFAS as "a feather in the government's cap", with R5 billion disbursed in the current financial year. The annual report reflected that the scheme had disbursed R19 billion to students since its inception in 1999 and this year's figure followed the R5.5 billion disbursed in 2011. More...

By David Jobbins. The UK government has got its sums wrong and could end up making no savings from increased tuition fees in England and Wales, an independent think-tank claimed this week.
The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) warns that the new fees policy will have one or more of the following consequences:

• Future taxpayers will need to pay more.
• Other parts of the higher education budget will need to be cut.
• Student numbers will need to be held down even further than currently planned.
• Former students will have to repay more.

Report authors John Thompson and Bahram Bekhradnia conclude that the government's calculations depend on “highly uncertain and optimistic assumptions” and will be largely wiped out by the incidental impact on the way state benefits are calculated.
In The Cost of the Government’s Reforms of the Financing of Higher Education, they argue that as student loans are one of the items used to calculate the official inflation rate, the proposals will lead to a rise in the social security budget and therefore increased government spending. More...

By Geoff Maslen. Universities will not survive the next 10 to 15 years unless they radically overhaul their current business models, according to a challenging report released this week. The report claims that the current university model – a broad-based teaching and research institution with a large base of assets and back office – will prove unviable in all but a few cases.
Although the 30-page report by the international professional services company Ernst & Young refers specifically to Australia’s higher education institutions, its conclusions would apply to those in many other Western countries.
The report, University of the Future: A thousand year old industry on the cusp of profound change, says at a minimum, universities will need significantly to streamline their operations and asset base at the same time as incorporating new teaching and learning delivery mechanisms, “a diffusion of channels to market, and stakeholder expectations for increased impact”. More...