Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Chris Cobb. A concerted effort by 30 Canadian aid groups to save a popular international paid internship program appears to have been successful. The groups had feared that the International Youth Internship Program (IYIP) was on the federal government’s chopping block. But without referring to the lobbying effort, International Development Minister Christian Paradis has announced that the internships will continue. More...

By Kevin Kee. If the value of history, languages, literature and art is increasingly being questioned that’s partly the fault of people like me. We haven’t spoken loudly enough, or often enough, about how we practice and share the humanities.
The way we work and the way we communicate is not as divorced from our times – or from the realities of industry and the economy – as some opinion columnists and think-tank commentators might have you believe. More...

By Shaila Dewan. THE news about the SAT has been confusing lately. On one hand, so many colleges and universities have opted not to require it that the College Board, which administers the SAT, has announced a top-to-bottom revamp because the test is out of step with today’s academic expectations. On the other hand, many employers are still asking job applicants for their test scores, even if they are years out of date. More...

By Louise Brown. OECD's latest assessment ranks Canadian students ahead of most of the West in many skills thought most important by 21st century employers. Canadian teens outshone their English-speaking peers around the world on a new global test of the problem-solving skills that employers call the secret to a strong economy. While they slipped slightly on the last international math test, Canadian 15-year-olds ranked seventh among 44 countries — beaten only by Singapore, Japan, Korea and four regions of China — on this new test of “creative problem-solving skills,” to be released Tuesday as part of the OECD’s latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA.) More...

By Josh Eidelson. As a new lawsuit seeks to radically transform teaching conditions, an expert warns of our nation's education shift. Final briefs are due next week in Vergara v. California, an under-the-radar billionaire-backed lawsuit that could transform teaching conditions in the largest state. Citing the constitutional rights of its public school student plaintiffs, the suit seeks to overturn state laws that schedule tenure consideration after two years of teaching, dictate the use of seniority when budget cuts force layoffs, and impose due process rules on teachers’ terminations. It very well may succeed; the president of one of the statewide unions fighting the suit warned L.A. Weekly that Judge Rolf Treu’s more aggressive questioning of his side “unfortunately … may be quite telling about where he’s going.” And it could inspire copycat efforts across the United States. More...

By Kwon Ji-youn. The National Institute for International Education (NIIED) and The Korea Times have agreed to promote a homegrown English test in a move to reduce the nation’s heavy reliance on the TOEFL and TOEIC. Lee Byung-hyun, president of the NIIED, and Korea Times President-Publisher Park Moo-jong signed the agreement on the promotion of the National English Ability Test (NEAT), Wednesday. More...

Der Wissenschaftssoziologe Gingras warnt vor "perversen Effekten" durch das Rennen um gute Platzierungen. Etwa: Falsche Arbeitsadressen.
Yves Gingras, Wissenschaftssoziologe an der Universite du Quebec in Montreal, warnt vor "perversen Effekten" durch internationale Uni-Rankings: Das Rennen um gute Platzierungen, die von der Politik verstärkt zur Evaluierung und als Kriterium für die Mittelzuteilung genutzt werden, fördere "intellektuelle Korruption", schreibt er in seinem neuen Buch über Forschungsevaluierung.
Die vorhandenen Rankings hätten "keinerlei wissenschaftlichen Wert", würden die Leistungen der Unis schlecht abbilden und stets ein bestimmtes Land oder eine bestimmte Region bevorzugen, schreibt Gingras in seinem neuen Buch "Die Auswüchse der Forschungsevaluierung" ("Les derives de l'evaluation de la recherche"). Mehr...