By Michael Gardner. Radical modernisers and educational traditionalists clashed at this year’s Online Educa Berlin (OEB) conference in Germany’s capital. Donald Clark, a director of the United Kingdom’s University for Industry, called for a new approach to accreditation.
Addressing the motto of this year’s OEB, “Reaching beyond Tomorrow”, participants discussed the motion that “a ban on diplomas and degrees awarded by schools and universities would have a positive impact on competence development and lifelong learning”.
Clark referred to two critical aspects in this context – developments in technology and their impact on course provision, and growing youth unemployment. Read more...

By Geoff Maslen. A national report on the work of Australia’s university researchers has found that the number of disciplines in higher education institutions performing at and above world standard has doubled over the past two years, with 10 universities rated above the world standard for research, including four performing at well above world standard.
The report notes that more than 450 instances of fields of research were ranked at, above or well above world standard, and in all 22 broad fields of research in between three and 14 Australian universities achieved a rating at above or well above world standard.
Prepared by the Australian Research Council, the report was released by Science and Research Minister Senator Chris Evans, who said the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) report showed Australia was on track to have 10 universities in the world's top 100 by 2025 – a target set out in the government’s Australia in the Asian Century White Paper, which was released by Prime Minister Julia Gillard last month. Read more...

By Yojana Sharma. China is stepping up its overseas training programme for presidents and vice presidents of public universities as it looks to upgrade higher education to compete with world-class systems and top universities internationally.
Some 1,000 university presidents and vice presidents will be sent to the United States, Britain, Australia and Germany for leadership training courses beginning this month, under a new 80 million yuan (US$12.8 million) programme over five years, the Ministry of Education has announced.
China’s Vice-minister of Education Hao Ping said in mid-November, in remarks carried by the official Xinhua news agency, that the training would help university presidents to understand how higher education in developed countries has evolved and to learn about university management reforms. Read more...

Lancement de la version mobile de "lesmetiers.net"
Le site lesmetiers.net a lancé le 22 novembre une version mobile de son site internet. Fiches métiers, vidéos, actualités sur les métiers et les formations… on retrouve l’essentiel des informations présentes sur le site internet.
Chaque semaine un métier est mis à « à la une », et chaque jour une nouvelle actualité est proposée. Un moteur de recherche « métiers », permet de retrouver à partir d’un simple mot-clé, l’ensemble des fiches et des vidéos.
Consulter le site depuis votre mobile.
Alerte Actualité du site!
Inscrivez-vous gratuitement à notre service d’alerte pour être prévenu par SMS des actualités du site lesmetiers.net (nouveau dossier, nouvelle fiche...).
Lancée le 22 novembre dernier, la version mobile du site lesmetiers.net met vos contenus préférés à portée de votre mobile.
La version mobile du site lesmetiers.net vient d’être mise en ligne!
Vous y trouverez des fiches métiers, des vidéos, ainsi qu’une sélection d’actualités sur les métiers et les formations en Ile-de-France.
Simple, colorée et fidèle à l’univers graphique du site lesmetiers.net, lesmétiers.net version mobile vous propose:
    En page d’accueil, chaque semaine un métier « à la une », et chaque jour une nouvelle actu;
    Sur la page « Métier », un moteur de recherche métiers, par mot clé ou par ordre alphabétique, qui vous permet de retrouver sur votre mobile l’ensemble de nos fiches métiers et de nos vidéos métiers;
    Sur la page « Actu », les 10 dernières actualités publiées sur le site.
Soyez les premiers à surfer sur la version mobile du site lesmetiers.net. Pour vous y rendre, rien de plus simple: il suffit de taper « lesmetiers.net » dans votre moteur de recherche mobile.
N’hésitez pas à nous faire part de vos impressions et de vos attentes en nous écrivant par mail à l’adresse contact@lesmetiers.net. Patricia Holl

Pour 63% des employeurs interrogés, développer l’approche employabilité/formation favorise l’amélioration de l’image sociale de l’entreprise. Ce sont les managers qui demeurent les relais d’information et qui sensibilisent leurs salariés à la formation professionnelle.

* capacité individuelle à acquérir et à maintenir les compétences nécessaires pour trouver ou conserver un emploi.

More students are looking beyond their borders to give their education a competitive edge.
Despite shrinking support for scholarships and tightening travel budgets, 177 million students left their home countries in 2012 to pursue formal tertiary education, an increase of 77 million students since 2000.
With the exception of the US, which suffered a considerable drop in the number of foreign students it received, young scholars appear to be flocking mostly to English-speaking countries. Australia, New Zealand and the UK have the highest percentage of international students among their tertiary students, and have seen noticeable boosts in their popularity as educational destinations in the past decade.
Tuition policies also play a large role in destination choices for foreign students: among most EU contries such as Austria, Italy and Spain, international students from other EU countries are treated as domestic students with respect to tuition fee charges, which are relatively low in these countries.
Korea, where most international students pay tuition fees that are somewhat lower than those paid by domestic students, has transformed in recent years to become a more popular study abroad destination than Sweden (which charges no tuition fees for either international or domestic students) or the Netherlands. Meanwhile, Korea joins China and India in boasting the largest numbers of students studying abroad.

The NetCu project team launched the guidelines for organising networked curricula at the EADTU Conference in Paphos, 27-28 September. The aim of this publication is to offer a concise, “hands-on” handbook for all professionals who want to engage in setting up a networked curriculum for education. The research that was carried out indicates that there are numerous reasons and opportunities to start such collaboration. Read more in this policy paper. In combination with the Handbook the Compendium of showcases of networked curricula European wide was published as an online reference guide. In addition an ICT-Toolbox for supporting networked curricula is published on-line. This toolbox helps you to find the right ICT-instruments for supporting your networked curricula. Please find all info under www.networkedcurricula.eu and www.eadtu.eu/netcu.
NetCu - A case for European Networked Curricula - Networked and integrated curricula and virtual mobility
It is felt by the EADTU members that collaborative curricula at the master level are an answer on the need for high quality and specialized provisions, fit to the European citizen and workforce. They will enrich the students learning experience with complementary subjects and international collaboration skills, needed in all segments of business and societal life. They will link with institutional research strengths and broaden the offer for research-based lifelong learning in a cost-effective way.
For the past 2 years, EADTU has been running the NetCu-project on the development of international networked curricula. With the NetCu-project, EADTU has taken the lead in providing an analysis of transnational networked curricula in open and distance education, from which models and comprehensive guidelines were built. With the input from 15 partners, representing 20 European showcases, we have developed guidelines for organizing networked curricula in a structured way. To support the network curricula also technically, an ICT-Toolbox was developed with direct references for multimedia support.
The NetCu outcomes will therefore facilitate the establishment of international curricula and help:
a) to enhance the quality of the curricula and programme structure of European higher education institutions by providing more diverse study opportunities,
b) to strengthen the national and European position of the partner's course offers
c) to create a European identity of study programmes in open and distance education and blended learning
d) to successfully modernize universities
On the societal level universities will be equipped with an instrument that allows them to properly reflect on and respond to the new skills needed in a globalised, creative knowledge society. The incorporated methods will provide students and especially lifelong learners not only with the best academic knowledge available but also with an international experience and the (soft) skills needed for competitive participation in today's labour market.
Virtual mobility to support networked curricula
The NetCu project is also an important foundation for the future development of virtual mobility as a practical solution to the challenge of meeting the needs of students whose domestic and working lives make physical mobility impractical. Limits on physical mobility need not be barriers to offering our students an international experience. Technology now makes possible a rich mix of learning opportunities - virtual seminars, projects, internships and so on, from which we can begin to expand the mobility of credit and qualifications.
Through virtual mobility, without leaving home, so to speak, students can experience a richer curriculum than is available at their home institution, they can develop the skills of intercultural and international collaboration, they can learn to collaborate in virtual environments – a skill that increasingly employers are demanding of their staff, and at the same time, we can foster a sense of European or even global citizenship.
Traditional student mobility offers immersion and language learning, but virtual mobility offers complementary benefits. It is readily scalable and can overcome capacity constraints. It is extremely flexible, it can engage multiple universities in different countries simultaneously, it is accessible to students with special needs, it is cost effective, and its carbon footprint is small.
NetCu has been our latest initiative in a steady stream of work to turn the concept of virtual mobility into a practical reality.
Launch of the NetCu Handbook, Compendium of showcases and ICT-Toolbox
The NetCu Consortium has now finalized and launched the first Handbook on organising networked curricula and successfully creating internationally networked curricula in open and distance education and blended learning. Not restricted anymore to more or less coincidental personal contacts between staff members of different universities, but a strategic choice of a university at management level. By recognising the strength of a networked approach in curricula development at institutional and faculty level, a more structured and consistent approach can be taken. The NetCu Handbook that is based on the success factors of 20 running showcases will offer in combination with the on-line ICT-Toolbox the right guidance for educational policymakers.
Please find the NetCu publications as open source material under www.networkedcurricula.eu.
All details on the project you can find under www.eadtu.eu/netcu. Coordinator: George Ubachs.

NIACE has responded to the Skills Funding Statement, published today by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Skills Funding Agency (SFA).
David Hughes, Chief Executive of NIACE, said:
"We welcome the emphasis throughout the Statement on meeting the needs of those people who need the most help to get on in learning and in life. Examples of this include the continued full funding, at higher rates, of English and maths; the commitment to support fair access to apprenticeships for learners with learning difficulties and disabilities; the focus on supporting the skills needs of the unemployed; and the intention to introduce traineeships for those people not yet ready to enter into apprenticeships or work. However, we are concerned about the suggestion that ESOL (English for Speakers of other Languages) learners will ‘progress to Functional Skills in English and GCSE English Language’; NIACE feels ESOL learners need qualifications specifically designed for the second language learner, which are fit for purpose.
"We are also pleased to see that the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) is endorsed with a review into the operational issues which have beset it since its inception. This has to be the right approach to making sure that the unitised nature of the QCF can be utilised to support flexibility in learning. The continued support for the Innovation Code is good news as colleges and providers begin to have confidence that they can use it to meet local bespoke needs of both learners and employers.
"We are, of course, pleased that Community Learning funding has been retained and that the funding for the Specialist Designated Institutions will be maintained for the foreseeable future. It is good to see an endorsement of the Community Learning Trust approach currently being piloted - in particular the role that local authorities play in this work.
"The news that, overall, the revenue funding has not been cut further than planned is also welcome. The new injection of capital into FE colleges will have a quick and direct benefit to learners across the country, as will the funding of modern equipment." Read more...

NIACE warmly welcomes the All Party Parliamentary Group on Race and Community report on Ethnic Minority Female Unemployment - published today - outlining twenty four recommendations to improve levels of training and employment amongst Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi women.
Unemployment amongst Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi women has remained consistently high since the 1980s. Pakistani and Bangladeshi women are particularly affected; 20% of these women are unemployed compared with 7% of white women. The Inquiry reported a number of barriers to employment – discrimination, language issues, cultural attitudes, qualifications and lack of social capital. Childcare was also a problem.
The Group identified English for Speakers of other Languages (ESOL) as a key solution to some of these barriers. Women wanted women-only classes in familiar venues at appropriate times. There are three recommendations on ESOL which NIACE can wholeheartedly support; that ESOL providers are supported to deliver courses more suited to these women’s needs, that pre-courses be introduced in areas of high need and that Government should encourage more work-focused ESOL classes for women who want them. Find out more about the APPG inquiry into ethnic minority female unemployment. Read more...