Formation Continue du Supérieur

2 mars 2013

The U.K.’s radical tuition experiment

By Léo Charbonneau. As Quebec debated this week whether to index tuition fees to inflation, a far more radical overhaul of tuition policy plays out in England. The Quebec government announced on Monday it plans to raise tuition by 3 percent, or about $70 from the current level of just under $2,200. Compare this to the U.K. government, which implemented a plan last year that saw university students in England pay on average £8,500 ($13,300 CDN) for the school year, a massive increase of more than 250% from the previous average tuition of £3,300. (Tuition policy in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland is different, and students in those countries did not experience a similar increase in fees.)
It’s been a wild ride for tuition fees in England over a relatively short period of time. Tuition fees of £1,000 were first introduced in 1998 then were tripled to around £3,000 starting in 2006. In the current system, all students are eligible for loans to cover the full tuition costs and repayment of these loans begins after graduation. Read more...

Posté par pcassuto à 18:24 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Partager cet article

Vous aimez ?

0 vote

2 mars 2013

Have universities lost their way?

By Reid Robinson. Robinson was involved in administration at the University of Regina for many years, serving as dean of arts, associate vice-president academic, and university secretary.
Since the early 19th century, "Critics, reformers and governments have claimed that the studies carried out in universities are outdated, irrelevant or in a word useless, and that they need to serve national needs more effectively and more directly to become in other words more useful," notes Stefan Collini, a professor of intellectual history and English literature at Cambridge University, in a recent book What Are Universities For.
This has continued to the present day. Read more...

Posté par pcassuto à 18:08 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Partager cet article

Vous aimez ?

0 vote

2 mars 2013

How to choose the right university for you

By William Ham Bevan. Your choice of university will affect your life socially and professionally, so it’s important to make a wise decision. William Ham Bevan has some tips.
When choosing a university, bear one thing in mind: it’s not all academic. As well as finding a course that matches your interests, think carefully about the whole student experience and whether it will suit you. If you don’t like your surroundings or the educational culture of a place, remember that you will have to put up with them for three years or more. Britain’s universities and colleges are hugely diverse, but for many people the stereotype will be a campus university such as Leeds, Birmingham or Warwick. These are like self-contained towns, with accommodation, academic and leisure facilities on a single site. There are pros and cons to spending most of your time in a place that is so student-oriented. Read more...

Posté par pcassuto à 18:03 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Partager cet article

Vous aimez ?

0 vote

2 mars 2013

UKBA clarifies universities' responsibilities

By David Matthews. Institutions need not subject international students to biometric attendance monitoring, agency reveals.
The UK Border Agency has clarified that universities do not need separate or biometric attendance monitoring systems for international students after confusion in the sector over how strict checks should be. Universities UK said that the move was a "step in the right direction" for the often fraught relationship between the sector and the agency. Students' unions, meanwhile, have called for a scaling-back of attendance checks that make international students feel like "visa cheats". Institutions must prove to the UKBA that international students are engaging with their studies if they want a licence to sponsor them. Read more...

Posté par pcassuto à 17:41 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Partager cet article

Vous aimez ?

0 vote

2 mars 2013

Student visas fall by a fifth

By David Matthews. The number of visas issued to overseas students has fallen by a fifth although applications for university student visas have increased by 3 per cent, according to the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics.
The statistics come as the government was accused of failing to deliver a "credible response" to a recommendation from the House of Commons Business, Skills and Innovation Committee that students should be removed from net migration targets.
There were 209,804 study visas issued for the year ending December 2012, a fall of 20 per cent on the year before, although these data are not broken down by universities, colleges and schools.
There was a sizable drop off in study visas issued to students from South Asia: Pakistani (-69 per cent), Indian (-50 per cent), Sri Lankan (-72 per cent) and Bangladeshi (-53 per cent) nationals all saw steep declines. Read more...

Posté par pcassuto à 17:39 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Partager cet article

Vous aimez ?

0 vote

2 mars 2013

A wheelchair-user's guide to picking a university

By Jamie Green. Don't rule anything out without at least investigating it first – though you might want to give 'custard wrestling' a miss. There are plenty of points students consider when picking a university, from the cost of living to the quality of the courses on offer. But it's fair to say that steps outside lecture buildings, the effectiveness of the disability office or the presence of cobbled streets won't be at the top of most students' priority lists. Read more...

Posté par pcassuto à 17:17 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Partager cet article

Vous aimez ?

0 vote

2 mars 2013

If postdoctoral life is about playing by the rules, what are the rules?

By Daniel Nehring. Five years have passed since the end of my PhD. This seemed a suitable moment to take stock of my professional achievements and shortcomings and to make plans for the further development of my career. So I booked an advising session with Karen Kelsky, an academic careers consultant and former professor at a major US university. Do take a look at her blog – it considers, from a US perspective, some of the professional development issues that we all face. Read more...

Posté par pcassuto à 17:14 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Partager cet article

Vous aimez ?

0 vote

2 mars 2013

With this student visa policy, Cameron is throttling our cultural exports

By Polly Toynbee. The wealth created by our arts and universities is being choked. The US and others are happy to gain from those we shun. Exports plummeted alarmingly in this week's figures, hard on the heels of the credit downgrading. One economic woe follows in another's footsteps, a domino of disasters. This is the death spiral, longer than a lost decade.
Remember when trade was to be our great escape? Government forecasts said net trade (exports minus imports) would rise by 2.4%, as we stole a march on our neighbours. Since then sterling has dropped by a quarter, its biggest fall since 1945. But devaluation has brought no export bonanza, with net trade falling. Yet 70% of government cuts are still to come and David Cameron promises "further and faster" deficit cutting. Read more...

Posté par pcassuto à 17:11 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Partager cet article

Vous aimez ?

0 vote

2 mars 2013

Leadership in higher education: 14 pieces of food for thought

By Claire Shaw. Are you an academic with aspirations to lead? Our recent live chat panel shared a wealth of experience and practical advice.
Know the difference between effective leadership and good management. Management is about working within the boundaries of the status quo, whereas leadership has more to do with seeing other, wider possibilities and trying to make them happen. (Jenny Mathers). To be effective, however, leaders also have to be able to be managers too (Katie Normington). Read more...

Posté par pcassuto à 17:08 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Partager cet article

Vous aimez ?

0 vote

2 mars 2013

On Journal Rankings in a Nonsleazy Sense - Part 1

At various times throughout my graduate student and now junior faculty career, I have run into the phenomenon of journal rankings. My field is English studies, so I know that for many of you out there in the social sciences and especially any readers in the hard sciences may be laughing at my naivete on this issue. But in my experience, most folks in the humanities fields aren't as conscious of journal rankings in a technical sense. Oh sure, most of us know that PMLA or Critical Inquiry have much higher visibility than other, more specialized journals, but I've recently decided to familiarize myself with the finer points of journal rankings in an attempt to better understand my field. Read more...

Posté par pcassuto à 16:58 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Partager cet article

Vous aimez ?

0 vote