Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Andy Heath. With the easing of international sanctions, UK universities are re-engaging with Burma at a time when the country's higher education sector finds itself caught between two reviews.
It's lunchtime, but in the offices of the National League for Democracy (NLD), no one is stopping work. As we go up a tight staircase into an office hung with portraits of leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her father General Aung San, activists work energetically around tables strewn with documents and maps. Student volunteers flick between drafting policy papers on antiquated PCs and checking Facebook on their iPhones.
The NLD, Burma's main opposition party, is investing great energy in drafting the country's new higher education bill. It is a political priority for the party and its leader, who has called on international support to rebuild the country's universities.Last week we arrived in Burma for the first UK higher education sector-wide mission since the civilian government was returned last year. Led by the UK Higher Education International Unit and Training Gateway, the mission includes sector organisations and representatives from the Universities of Manchester, Nottingham, Roehampton, UEA and the Institute of Education. Read more...

By Harvey Jones. With average student debt running at £39,000, many parents will bear some of the cost burden of a university education. They used to say a good education was priceless, but these days we know exactly what it costs – and it isn't cheap. The average student now expects to graduate with £39,000 of debt, according to the Money Advice Service. Tuition fees of up to £9,000 a year for full-time students (and £6,750 a year for part timers), accommodation costs, living expenses and course books all add up to a hefty sum.
Graduating with debts of £39,000 sounds daunting, but it may still be a price worth paying. On average, graduates earn £12,000 a year more than those without a degree, according to the Office for National Statistics. For many families, parents will bear some of the cost burden of a university education. So what do you need to know if your child is about to embark on higher education? Read more...

Why has Oxford Brookes topped the charts of UK universities teaching students abroad? It's all down to a fruitful collaboration with accountants, explains vice-chancellor Janet Beer.
A partnership between Oxford Brookes University and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (Acca) helps people all over the world who are trying to study their way to a better future.
Our students can add value to their professional Acca qualifications by completing a project that enhances their skills in research and analysis – and earns them a BSc in Applied Accounting.
Since 2000, when the partnership began, 16,544 students have graduated, most of them aged between 20 and 30. All the evidence suggests they are dramatically changing their lives, and those of their families. I have attended graduation ceremonies around the world and the enthusiastic support of the extended family for the students participating in this programme is obvious – they are always bursting with pride and pleasure. Read more...

Government-provided tuition subsidies "crowd out" parental contributions to their children's college educations, although the effect is much more pronounced for students from wealthier families than for those from lower-income backgrounds, a study published Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research asserts. The paper, written by two economists at the University of British Columbia and scholars from Yale and New York University (abstract available here), applies economic modeling to test how various changes in federal financial aid policy would play out if they were put in place. Read more...

By Andrew Trounson for The Australian. An Australian version of the European Union's university profiling tool, U-Map, could be in place within six months as part of a bid to reduce public and institutional obsession with research-biased rankings, while highlighting areas such as teaching.
But the tool will shine a spotlight on universities' vulnerabilities, too, including areas of poor research performance. Unlike the EU's U-Map project, which is dependent on the willingness of universities to participate and supply information, the Australian version will be based on publicly available data and include all universities, whether they like it or not.
Advocates hope it will encourage universities to be proud of their strengths and break the hold that research intensive universities have on prestige. But some fear its profiling will justify further concentration of research funds in a small number of institutions, including the elite Group of Eight. Read more...

By Joshua Kim. High Quality Online Learning: A Discussion with USC's Karen Gallagher
Karen Symms Gallagher, Dean of USC Rossier School of Education, caught my eye for two reasons.   
First, I read a couple of opinion pieces in which she argued that we need to look beyond MOOCs to the potential of providing extremely high quality and intimate for-credit degree programs that leverage new options in technology and new opportunities in non-profit / for-profit partnerships.   These columns, including Higher Ed Leaders Must Lead Online and Rethinking Higher Ed Open Online Learning stand apart for their combination of a progressive call for innovation in online education and skepticism that the locus of this innovation is limited to the world of MOOCs.
The second reason that Karen ended up on my radar screen was her designation as a  Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow.   This prestigious fellowship, which is given to only two dozen educators a year, is designed to "support extraordinary entrepreneurial leaders who are committed to transforming public education." Read more...

Journée pour l'emploi des docteurs. Quelles compétences pour quels métiers ?
JED SHS 4 avril 2013 - Journée organisée en collaboration avec l'université Lumière Lyon 2, l'université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 et les associations de doctorants "Les Têtes chercheuses" et "Enthèse", à l'Université Jean Moulin 3, 15 quai Claude Bernard, Lyon.
Tables-rondes, témoignages et ateliers  pour répondre à la question: "Quelles compétences pour quels métiers?"
Ecoles doctorales présentes:
Sciences sociales (ScSo) - Lettres, Linguistique, Arts (3LA) - Sciences de l'éducation, Psychologie, InfoCom (EPIC) - Sciences économiques et de Gestion (SEG) - Philosophie: histoire, représentation, création (Philo) - Droit.
Lire le compte-rendu des interventions de la JED 2012.
Programme provisionnel de la journée
8H30 - Ouverture: Que sont devenus les docteurs de l'Université de Lyon de 2009 par Pr. Christelle Goutaudier, Directrice du Collège doctoral de l’Université de Lyon.
9H00 - Parcours de Docteurs
11H00 - Les métiers de la fonction publique non académique
13H40- Pourquoi nous recrutons des Docteurs?
Ateliers: de 10H30 à 12H30 et de 15H à 16H30.
Thèmes:
    Simulations d'entretiens de recrutement,
    Déceler et valoriser ses compétences,
    Créer son activité,
    Jeunes chercheurs: soignez votre visibilité.
Etudes APEC/Deloitte
► Les besoins en compétences dans les métiers de la recherche à l'horizon 2020.
► Les besoins en compétences dans les métiers de la recherche à l'horizon 2020. Regards croisés entre employeurs et formateurs.
► Lire le compte-rendu des interventions de la JED 2012:
CONCLUSION
De toutes ces interventions, émerge un large consensus sur les capacités des Docteurs en sciences humaines et sociales à tracer leur voie professionnelle hors des sentiers académiques.
► En premier lieu, une expérience doctorale n’apporte pas seulement les connaissances scientifiques que le doctorant a l’habitude et le devoir de mobiliser. Le doctorat est un parcours professionnel qui apporte des savoirs faire et des savoirs être, sans cesse rappelés par les intervenants de cette journée comme des atouts qu’il faut apprendre à valoriser.
Un jeune Docteur:
- maîtrise la langue française et peut formuler clairement des choses complexes,

- a de l’aisance dans la prise de parole en public,

- sait analyser un corpus de données, quelles que soient les données, collecter et classer des informations, les rendre exploitables,

- peut gérer un projet de A à Z et des tâches multiples,

- apporter un regard neuf et aiguisé sur une situation,

- être une force de proposition,

- est capable de s’adapter à un nouvel environnement et aux autres,

- d’être réactif et de rebondir.
► Ensuite, le diplôme de Doctorat possède une valeur en tant que tel. C’est une valeur ajoutée pour l’entreprise qui fait le choix du long terme et celui de se distinguer de ses concurrents en employant un Docteur.
► Enfin, les intervenants ont prodigué de nombreux conseils utiles, et vécus,
pour s’insérer et évoluer dans le marché du travail:

- Créer et entretenir son réseau: carte de visite et profil sur un (des) réseau(x) professionnel(s)

- Identifier et nommer ses compétences

- Adapter la formalisation des compétences à l’employeur visé

- Persévérer.

- Garder une cohérence de projet sur le long terme

- Etre sensible et à l’écoute de ce qui se passe autour de soi

- Créer et saisir des opportunités en rapport avec la thèse.
Les intervenants ont conseillé aux doctorants et aux jeunes Docteurs d’être fiers de leur parcours et du travail accompli, et d’oser les mettre en valeur auprès de futurs employeurs.
Ils ont rappelé que mener un doctorat, c’est aussi être capable d’envisager et de créer les métiers de demain!

By Doug Lederman. There is nothing subtle about the home page of a new venture unveiled Thursday. "$1 Trillion U.S. Student Loan Debt" it screams, with the dollar figure in large yellow type. It then displays the average price of four years at public and private colleges ($71,000 and $158,000, respectively), and follows with data showing that more than a quarter of all bachelor's degree-holders start out at a community college.
The latest bare-knuckled promotional campaign for the nation's two-year colleges? Not exactly, but not wildly off, either. A new investor-backed company, Quad Learning, is teaming up with community colleges to build a national network of honors programs with a collaborative curriculum that they envision giving students an affordable, high-quality associate degree and helping them transfer to topnotch colleges and universities. Read more...

By Margaret Andrews. Yesterday I got a peek behind the curtain.
Previous StratEDgy posts have addressed the rise of MOOCS and MOCCs (our own term for Mid-sized Online Closed Courses) and edX  – and today about HarvardX.
Yesterday afternoon I had the opportunity to attend a HarvardX Town Hall meeting, run by HarvardX faculty director Rob Lue, for Harvard faculty members and instructors to learn more about HarvardX.  And now I get it. We’ve all heard how online education has the ability to fundamentally change how higher education is perceived and delivered, as well as how it will change the world through expanding access, decreasing costs, and creating a host of new materials that can be experienced in new ways. And I’ve even taken a MOOC. Read more...