Formation Continue du Supérieur

Bridgetown Barbados...Jan. 28, 2013 -- Though small in terms of population and geographical size, the Caribbean looms large when it comes to taking advantage of educational opportunities in the United States.
The Caribbean is one of the highest “sending regions” in the world to U.S. universities and colleges and Maria Mercedes Salmon, Regional Education Advising Coordinator for Education USA, intends to see that it remains so.
Speaking during a recent familiarization and networking trip to the region, Salmon said:
“Per capita, it’s very high compared to other huge regions or countries like Brazil – with the large population that they have, they are sending approximately 9,000 students a year. When you analyze that ratio, it’s much lower than what the Caribbean is sending.”
In fact, the Institute of International Education’s 2012 Open Doors report shows that there were 10, 987 Caribbean students in the United States last year. This topped the numbers from many other places with much larger populations such as Nigeria (7,028), Australia (3,848) and Germany (9,347). Read more...

At the beginning of January, Ireland took over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from Cyprus. Outlining Ireland’s education priorities for the EU Presidency Ireland’s Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn T.D. said: “Ensuring sustainable growth and jobs is the main theme of Ireland’s EU Presidency, and education and training have a key role to play in this and in tackling the unemployment crisis.”
The Irish Presidency said it had identified the following ‘legislative priorities’ for education during the course of the Presidency:

• Regulation establishing “Erasmus for All”
• New Directive to amend Directive 2005/36 on the recognition of professional qualifications
• Regulation on the European Social Fund (ESF) and the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF)
• Decision on the Strategic Innovation Agenda of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) & Regulation amending 2008 Regulation which established the EIT

In terms of priority topics, the Presidency said there would be a focus on the social dimension of higher education. National Qualification Frameworks and the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) would also be another priority area. In addition to a Presidency conference on ‘quality assurance in qualifications frameworks’, there would also be a focus on how employment sector actors are engaged in quality assurance and on quality assuring learning outcomes in relation to the needs of the labour market. The Presidency programme also highlights that the Commission’s recent communication on ‘Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes’ will “inform consideration of wider education reform’s”. The adoption of Council conclusions responding to the Communication would be proposed for the February 2013 Education Council. In terms of Research and Innovation, the Presidency’s programme outlines that it is aiming for agreement on Horizon 2020, the EU programme for research and innovation (within the context of overall agreement on the Multiannual Financial Framework). In addition to an agreement on the two dossiers that make up the EIT proposal, it said it would attach strong importance to the European Research Area. Reflecting the “priority attached to boosting the Union’s innovation capacities”, the Presidency said it would host a number of conferences in Dublin in  2013 aimed at supporting this objective. Innovation would also be one of the main topics of the informal Competitiveness Council. Download the Irish Presidency Programme here.

The 2013 thematic workshop of the EUA Council for Doctoral Education (EUA-CDE) focused on interdisciplinary doctoral programmes, outlining the possibilities and challenges interdisciplinary perspectives present for doctoral education. The workshop, which took place from 17 to 18 January 2013, was hosted by the Politecnico di Torino in Italy and attracted more than 90 participants from over 20 countries. At the workshop, members of EUA-CDE presented case studies of how and why universities engage in interdisciplinary training of doctoral candidates. Staff from Technische Universität München and Newcastle University introduced two major case studies from the point of view of university management, researchers and doctoral candidates in order to show the different motivations and perspectives from the parties involved in such programmes. Ten other case studies were presented in parallel sessions over the two days of the workshop. More information about the EUA-CDE is available here.

Following last year’s EUA Funding Forum, EUA has published the first contributions to its newly created “University Funding Articles Series”. This collection of articles, available on the EUA website, aims to provide the reader with a variety of updated sources on the topic of higher education funding from practitioners in the field.
This first series of contributions stems directly from EUA’s Funding Forum, which took place at the University of Salzburg in June 2012. A number of experts who presented their work at the event have authored the papers. The selection of papers covers different topics such as the future of European research funding for universities; the evolution towards formula-based funding for teaching and the introduction of performance indicators in university funding. The first series of articles also explore models for income diversification at universities and business schools, and the European Students’ Union has contributed a piece on “financing the students’ future”.
This series can be read in conjunction with a number of other useful resources gathered on this page, along with the various presentations given at the Funding Forum itself. Visit the University Funding Article Series here.