Réforme de l'Etat - lancement de la MAP qui succède à la RGPP avec 50 mesures décidées pour 2013

Chaque ministre élaborera, au premier trimestre 2013, un “programme de modernisation et de simplification”, couvrant la période 2013-2015 et plusieurs chantiers de modernisation interministériels sont engagés notamment sur l’administration territoriale de l’État.
L’ensemble de ces travaux sera conduit avec les agents publics et l’ensemble des partenaires de l’État, notamment les associations représentant les collectivités territoriales, et les partenaires sociaux.
Concernant l'emploi, il a été décidé d'améliorer la transparence du marché du travail en facilitant la publicité des offres et de la demande. Un service permettant de faciliter la publication des offres et des CV sera lancé en phase pilote au second trimestre 2013. La base de données nationale de l’offre de formation (projet Dokelio) sera mise en place. La procédure de demande de rupture conventionnelle sera dématérialisée pour en améliorer la sécurité juridique.
Afin de réduire la complexité administrative des démarches pour les jeunes, il est prévu de développer l’inscription en ligne et le choix des options pour les élèves du collège et du lycée. La lisibilité des formations supérieures sera accrue grâce à une simplification des intitulés par grands domaines disciplinaires et par métier. Une nomenclature des intitulés de licence sera préparée dès 2013, suivie par une nomenclature des masters. Le portail numérique admission post bac (APB) devra être le point d’entrée unique d’inscription dans l’enseignement supérieur. Voir le dossier complet. Suite de l'article...
Voir aussi Ministère de l’enseignement supérieur et sureffectifs, Le Supérieur dans le document de synthèse de la journée de travail dédiée à la RGPP, Le Supérieur au 5e Conseil de modernisation des politiques publiques, RGPP au ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, Les Rencontres de la Modernisation de l'Etat 2010.

Universities told to consult with businesses to design training curricula

Schools criticized for making out bad products
Employers always complain that it’s very difficult to find the university graduates who can satisfy their requirements and soon get adapted to the new jobs. They say new graduates don’t have deep knowledge in their fields, lack soft skills and bad foreign language skills. Therefore, experts have called on to renovate the universities’ training curriculums so as to create the products that fit enterprises. Especially, they said employers should “place orders” with universities, requesting the products which can satisfy their needs.
Director of the Thai Nguyen University Dang Kim Vui admitted that new university graduates have limited working capability both in professional knowledge and skills. However, he said the problem does not exist in all training majors. In some majors, Vui said, the curriculums have been renovated, while the trainers well consider the demand of the society. Therefore, the graduates of the majors have high qualifications and can get adapted to the jobs.
Meanwhile, the capability of the bachelors in some other majors is more limited due to many reasons. One of these is that the majors remain unfamiliar to both trainers and students. Read more...
Can private universities lift India?

While these numbers are worrisome by themselves, in a China-envious country where India-China comparisons adorn the bookshelves of the growing breed of globetrotting Indians, the overall performance of India's higher education sector - including the poor world rankings of its universities - should be a cause for alarm. China has pulled ahead in higher education despite India's "English advantage".
A growing number of Chinese universities are breaking into world rankings, while the majority of Indian institutions remain trapped in mediocrity. While China's research output has grown significantly over the past decade, India's has stagnated and even declined in some disciplines. Read more...
Universities overseas help draw up plans for expansion

On Monday, at the Seventh Confucius Institute Conference in Beijing, more than 300 university presidents took part in a seminar to discuss drawing up such plans for Confucius Institutes globally.
That followed a meeting in 2011 at which the Confucius Institute Headquarters discussed its development plan.
"During the meeting in 2011, we gave some suggestions on the development plan, which included goals to achieve, key projects and some concrete measures. Then we extended some specific terms in the plan, and figured out detailed goals for 2020," said Jing Wei, deputy chief executive of the Confucius Institute Headquarters.
The headquarters published its 2012-20 development plan earlier this year, and encouraged Confucius Institutes to submit their own such plans. Read more...
Doctors Crossing Borders

Migration target panned by another Parliamentary committee

The House of Lords EU Committee today joins peers on the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee and MPs on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, the Home Affairs Committee and Public Accounts Committee in calling for action from the government. Universities UK is now likely to highlight the fact that although five Parliamentary committees back its cause, the government is yet to make the policy shift.
The coalition is implementing a Conservative manifesto pledge to reduce net migration to the "tens of thousands" by 2015 - with non-EU students forming a key target for reductions. But UUK has mounted a lobbying campaign to urge the government to withdraw university-sponsored students from its net migrant targets, which would remove the government's incentive to target those students for reductions. Read more...
Grade inflation blows up German universities
Germans might fear inflation of the economic variety, but grade inflation has become rampant in the academic world. Pippa Wentzel reports.
When 80 percent of students graduate with one of the top two grades, questions start being asked. When you learn that this figure was 70 percent as recently as 2001, alarm bells start to ring.
A report published last month by the German Council of Science and Humanities into marking practices across the nation's universities has drawn attention to these disquieting trends. It may provide welcome reassurance to anxious German students swotting for examinations, but makes otherwise for uncomfortable reading.
Wolfgang Marquardt, head of the Council which produced the report, did not mince his words in describing the situation to The Local. "The grades which students currently receive say almost nothing meaningful about their real achievement," he said.
The statistics which leap out of the report make it easy to see where Marquardt is coming from. What does it mean to achieve a "very good" or "good" in Art and Art History, when you're joined by 96 percent of all candidates? Likewise for social science, where 89 percent emerge with top grades. Read more...
Skolkovo takes Saudi school as model

Russia is becoming an increasingly popular higher education destination, accounting for 4 percent of all tertiary students pursuing their studies abroad. Those are the most recent findings from a survey by the OECD Directorate of Education.
“Over a 10-year period, the share of international students who chose the United States as their destination dropped from 23 to 17 percent, while the share of students who chose the Russian Federation grew by around 2 percentage points,” the Education Directorate reported.
In 2010 some 146,000 foreigners studied in Russia, according to Russia’s Statistics Service. Read more...
AUS launches region's first guide to picking a university
The first guidebook offering students advice on choosing one of the region’s many universities has been launched by the American University of Sharjah (AUS). There are 107 universities and colleges in the UAE alone but it can be difficult for students to choose between them as only three – UAE University, AUS and Abu Dhabi University – feature on international rankings tables, which feature information on class sizes, research output and student numbers.
AUS, as part of its community service remit, has now produced an online manual offering guidance on selecting the best university. The free e-book does not refer to specific institutions but instead identifies seven key areas students should consider: application deadlines, academic accreditation, recruitment history, fees, curriculum, location and global reputation. Read more...
Who Are MOOCs Most Likely to Help?
By . It may turn out that electronic degree programs designed to make education democratic will actually only work for the elite.
If you've become a true believer in the power of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and other "disruptive" web-based programs to break the cost spiral of higher education, you should read the excellent analysis by two writers of the Chronicle of Higher Education, Scott Carlson and Goldie Blumenstyk, "For Whom Is College Being Reinvented?" They're not against MOOCs, certificates, and other alternatives to conventional schools for students with solid secondary backgrounds. But they make the excellent point that these appeal most to the families that need them least and are best able to sort out the high-quality programs from the dubious ones. Read more...