6-8pm Mon. 3 June. It is 25 years since the Higher Education Contribution Scheme began and the funding weights applied to each discipline were fixed. But we are yet to achieve a stable consensus on private and public contributions. The funding weights are out of whack with real cost differences, and both public and student contributions are capped at levels blocking the provision of genuinely high quality programs across the board. The rationale for government funding is unclear, a recipe for its continued erosion as a proportion of total revenues. The government commissioned the Base Funding Review to sort all of this out and then threw out the Review report! Meanwhile a future Coalition government, plugging a deficit created by the abolition of the carbon tax, is likely to cut government contributions and ramp up student charges. And the public costs generated by HECS loans at higher levels, in a demand-driven system, are mounting. Can we afford to bankroll education as a right? Can students from poorer backgrounds afford to take on an increased HECS debt? With free online courses of high quality now available, shouldn’t the cost of higher education be going down and not up?
Confirmed speakers:
Bruce Chapman, Director, Policy Impact, Australian National University
Prof. Paul Wellings, Vice-Chancellor, University of Wollongong
Prof. Ian Young, Vice-Chancellor, Australian National University
Chair: Prof. Leo Goedegebuure, Director, LH Martin Institute
VENUE: Woodward Conference Centre, 10th Floor, Melbourne Law School, Pelham St, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria.
Jointly presented by the Centre for the Study of Higher Education & the LH Martin Institute.

Organisé avec le soutien du ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche,  en partenariat avec la Conférence des Présidents d'Université (C.P.U.), la Conférence des Directeurs des Ecoles Françaises d'ingénieurs (C.D.E.F.I.), la Conférence des Grandes Ecoles (C.G.E.), le CNOUS, l'Agence du Service Civique, Animafac et le Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, ce concours vise à donner la parole aux étudiants, recueillir leurs attentes et leurs idées pour inventer le monde de demain. Pour cela, les candidats devront proposer un texte original et force de proposition pour l'avenir.
Les 100 lauréats seront invités aux Rencontres Économiques d'Aix-en-Provence les 5, 6 et 7 juillet 2013; où ils participeront à l'ensemble des sessions sur le thème "Le choc des temps. L'économie mondiale entre urgences et long terme".
La ministre, tient à rappeler tout son soutien à cette initiative: "Dans un monde en pleine mutation, nous avons plus que jamais besoin d'investir dans la jeunesse, de leur donner la parole pour imaginer les solutions à même de répondre aux grands défis économiques, environnementaux, sociétaux de ce 21e siècle."
Retrouvez toutes les informations relatives au concours sur le site des Rencontres économiques d'Aix en Provence. Le concours "Inventez 2020! La parole aux étudiants". Le programme des Rencontres Economiques d'Aix-en-Provence 2013.
Présentation
À l’occasion de la 13e édition des Rencontres Économiques d’Aix-en-Provence, les 5, 6 et 7 juillet 2013, Le Cercle des économistes et France Culture Plus donnent la parole aux letudiant.fr Lire la suite.
Comment participer ?
Vous souhaitez participer au concours « Inventez 2020. La parole aux étudiants », rien de plus simple. Lire la suite.
Contact
Une question? N’hésitez pas à nous contacter! Lire la suite.
Communication
Vous souhaitez communiquer sur le concours? Vous trouverez ici plusieurs éléments qui pourront vous y aider. Lire la suite.

Par Sylvestre Huet. Les ministres de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la recherche se lamentent de la "désaffection" des étudiants pour les sciences. Et Vincent Peillon rame pour trouver des candidats professeurs du secondaire. Pourquoi? Cette désaffection est-elle réelle?
Je vous invite à lire cette analyse précise et argumentée qui montre combien cette explication n'a aucun fondement et comment les politiques scolaires (lycée) et universitaire (le LMD) associées à des politiques en yoyo pour les recrutements de chercheurs et d'enseignants ont provoqué la situation actuelle. Suite de l'article...

Forcing undergraduates to attend class retards their capacity to develop as mature, independent learners, warns Bruce Macfarlane.
Academics frequently complain that their freedom is being infringed by the scrutiny imposed on them by developments such as teaching observations, research assessments and annual appraisals. But we rarely reflect on the increasing surveillance to which students are also subject and the effect this has on their academic freedom.
There was a time when being a university student meant "reading" for a degree. Attending lectures and seminars was a matter of choice, and skipping classes barely raised an eyebrow. Now, attendance policies and class registers are the order of the day. Some lecturers even use draconian measures such as excluding students who are not punctual.
But the surveillance culture goes much deeper than that. There are an array of assessment-related proxies aimed at getting students to attend, including oral presentations, short tests and quizzes, cunningly scheduled for the beginning of classes including lectures, smaller group tutorials and seminars. Read more...

Universities should be challenging their students to become collaborative learners rather than conformist consumers. As two recent university graduates we are concerned about the labelling of students as customers who need to be kept satisfied. We believe that positioning students in this way in relation to their learning is deeply damaging to all our futures. Entering the next stage in our lives, at a time of uncertainty and rapid change, we need to be able to be proactive, think for ourselves, take a critical approach to problem solving, communicate effectively with a range of people and use our knowledge creatively.
If we are seen, and come to see ourselves, as customers who respond and react to what is given to us, who are asked if we like our courses (not what we gain from them), then we are unlikely to emerge from higher education as effective lifelong learners. More...