Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Ronald Roach. The national movement to make higher education institutions more transparent in terms of their comparative costs and student outcomes got a lift from the Obama administration with the launch of the web-based College Scorecard resource tool on Wednesday. President Obama, during the State of the Union address on Tuesday, announced the “new College Scorecard” as a web resource “that parents and students can use to compare schools based on a simple criteria—where you can get the most bang for your educational buck.” As a feature in the College Affordability and Transparency Center section, the College Scorecard is accessible through the White House website.
“Through tax credits, grants and better loans, we’ve made college more affordable for millions of students and families over the last few years. But taxpayers can’t keep on subsidizing higher and higher and higher costs for higher education,” Obama said. “Colleges must do their part to keep costs down, and it’s our job to make sure that they do.” Read more...

By Jim Browne. The higher-education landscape has reached a tipping point. Growing international competition; increasing privatisation and the challenge posed by Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) mean that on a global scale, higher education is in a state of metamorphosis. At home, increasing student demand, funding challenges, a proliferation of choice and calls for programme rationalisation, alongside concerns about admissions systems, have brought the sector to a transition point.
The Higher Education Authority (HEA) has published proposals for the future of higher education. One thing has emerged from these proposals: institutions can no longer operate in isolation; they must collaborate. In the past the focus was on individual institutions, but now the HEA envisages regional clusters or ecosystems of higher education within geographical boundaries. These will be composed of diverse institutions co-operating to meet the social and economic needs of the country. I have long argued for a network of collaborating institutions, each of which develops and maintains excellence in selected complementary areas. Read more...

By Nick Chiles. In order to grow their economies, nations across Africa have long been trying to figure out how to stop the brain drain—the best and the brightest African students going to school in the U.S. and the U.K. and not bringing their talents back to Africa.
But recent studies indicate that the brain drain may finally be coming to an end. Many African students studying abroad are now finding opportunities to use their training back at home. With seven of the world’s ten fastest economies in Africa, young people are noticing that their home may be the place where they have the best chance of quickly establishing a career.
Though Reda Merdi, 19, of Morocco, is heading to the University of Pennsylvania in the fall after finishing up at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, he has no plans to stay in the U.S. when he has completed his Ivy League education. Read more...

RANGOON — Burma's universities were once considered by many to be among the best in East Asia. But years of mismanagement and a disastrous nationalization process left the education system in such shambles that many students seek educational opportunities abroad.
Since entering parliament, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has made restoration of Burmese schools a priority, and a new attitude towards learning has emerged among policymakers.
These Burmese students are visiting a United States college fair in Rangoon, in the hopes to attend college there. Recent political reforms that have resulted in the lifting of sanctions against Burma have made this type of event possible for the very first time. Read more...