Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Alya Mishra. Improving quality and providing more funds to state universities will be the focus of India's higher education policy in the coming year.
Unprecedented countrywide expansion in higher education institutions has been the priority for the past two years.
But with infrastructure and recruitment of talented faculty unable to keep up with growth, the emphasis in 2012 - coinciding with the beginning of India's 12th Five Year Plan - will be on strengthening new and established institutions, particularly their quality.
Quality is also key to enhancing partnerships with international institutions and preparing for the entry of foreign branch campuses once the much-delayed Foreign Educational Institutions Bill clears parliament, as expected this year. The year could be significant for higher education reform given the number of bills pending in parliament. But officials said that state elections in early 2012 could delay any real progress in enacting controversial legislation in the first half of the year at least.
Focus on quality
During the previous Five Year Plan 2007-12, India announced 51 new publicly funded higher education institutions including eight Indian institutes of technology (IITs) and seven Indian institutes of management (IIMs).
However, construction of only four technology and five management institutes has started and about 40% of faculty posts are still vacant. While half of the announced institutions have been set up, most of them face problems including delays in land acquisition and shortages of administrative and teaching staff.
Adding more institutions is no longer a priority.
"The 12th plan will focus on improving the quality of central and state-funded institutions so that they can compete with the global best. Opening new institutes will be secondary," said an education ministry official who did not wish to be named. Four new IITs but no new IIMs will be built in the medium term.
Fourteen 'innovation universities' and 374 model colleges already announced in the current plan but not yet set up, will be carried forward to the new plan.
Strengthening state universities
Cash-strapped state universities, neglected in central government's recent higher education budgets, will finally get help this year. The 12th plan recognises that state universities and their affiliated colleges, which account for more than 90% of enrolment, suffer from severe funding constraints and poor governance, leading to poor quality.
Strengthening state universities is also important for the government to secure parliamentary support for the foreign institutions bill that will allow international universities to set up branches in India. Describing central support for state universities as a "protective measure", Professor Prakash T Chande, president of the Association of Indian Universities, said: "We have told the government that state universities need to be strengthened if they expect us to compete with foreign universities on Indian soil.
"Foreign universities will come [with] huge budgets, grants and manpower. We object to the Foreign Educational Institutions Bill on the grounds that we do not have a level playing field."
With elections scheduled in five states in early 2012, placating state governments and addressing the concerns of regional (state-based) parties will be a priority for the government, which relies on coalition partners to stay in power.
Legislative delays
The foreign institutions bill, approved by the cabinet in March 2010, is the most controversial of a raft of higher education bills pending in parliament. It faces a tortuous route through the legislative process. In November the parliamentary committee on human resource development recommended that a clause barring repatriation of profits be revised, and suggested that a fixed percentage of any surplus may be sent out of India by foreign institutions.
The draft bill is now with the education ministry, which can accept or reject the recommendation before obtaining cabinet approval for a final draft. It can then be re-introduced in the Lok Sabha, or lower house of parliament. Another important bill aims to reform the higher education regulatory framework. The National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) Bill was cleared by cabinet in December after two years of delays. Once passed by parliament, this bill will promote greater autonomy in higher education institutions.
It establishes a higher education regulatory body that will subsume current regulatory bodies like the University Grants Commission, the All India Council for Technical Education and the Council of Distance Education, which oversee higher education in the country. Other bills aimed at improving the quality and accountability of universities include the mandatory accreditation of all institutions, laws to deal with malpractices by institutions and setting up national education tribunals to resolve disputes.
"We are hopeful that several bills will be cleared this year. Last year was about debate and discussions on the bills and consultation with various stakeholders was needed," the education ministry official said.
But officials have admitted that little is expected in the first half of 2012 with elections in the five states expected in the first four months of the year. "Government, both at the centre and in the states, will take populist stands and try to maintain the [political] status quo. But the bills should move after that," a senior ministry official predicted.
Partnerships
Experts say 2012 will also be about enhancing partnerships with national and international universities and organisations, putting many recent memoranda of understanding (MoUs) into practice.
"Last year we saw several memorandums of understanding signed between India and other countries including the US, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Scotland," said Dhiraj Mathur, who is responsible for education at PriceWaterhouseCoopers India.
"They all aim at partnerships, joint degrees, research associations and faculty exchange. While these MoUs will be operationalised, I believe many more partnerships will take off in 2012."
But Indian universities with their faculty shortages, outdated curricula, administrative delays, dilapidated infrastructure and an inflexible education system will have to improve quality and infrastructure before they can take advantage of international partnerships. Except for IITs and IIMs, only a handful of private and public Indian universities have the finances and facilities to take advantage of international collaboration.
"Before we can think of expanding and encouraging foreign collaborations, exchange programmes and research initiatives we need to improve our universities and match the standards of leading American and European universities," said PC Jain, principal of Sri Ram College of Commerce in New Delhi.
Private institutions
The 12th Plan also emphasises the need to encourage private participation in higher education. But there is some scepticism about how far this can go, particularly in allowing for-profit institutions, and this debate will continue in 2012.
"While the government is increasingly looking at the private sector, it is also important to note that the nature of private participation has changed over the years," said Jandhyala BG Tilak, a professor at the National University of Educational Planning and Administration.
"Today few speak about private participation, which is based on the principle of philanthropy, charity and educational development of the poor. The private sector of the 21st century (even of the last quarter of the last century) is characterised by a strong profit motive."

By Jane Marshall. Presidential and general elections take place in France this year. Candidates have yet to publish their policies for higher education and research until 2017, but Nicholas Sarkozy will be judged on his promise to ensure France's top universities compete with the world's best.
For Sarkozy, 2012 marks not only the completion of his first (or only?) term as president of France, but also the deadline he set five years ago for radically transforming the higher education and research system and fulfilling his ambition for at least 10 French centres of excellence to rank among the world's top universities. During his campaign leading up to the 2007 presidential election, Sarkozy promised priority for higher education and research to equip the country for the "worldwide battle for intelligence".
In the five years under his presidency, French universities would achieve "real autonomy" over their budgets, human resources, management of their buildings and other responsibilities that were at the time under tight state control. Sarkozy undertook to increase funding for higher education by EUR5 billion (US$6.5 billion), and for research and innovation by EUR4 billion, during his mandate.
He would tackle the nation's poor showing in international rankings, which has always rankled in a country that prides itself on its intellectual and scientific prowess. France would boast internationally competitive institutions high in the charts. Sarkozy promised billions of euro of extra funding for a select few institutions that showed the greatest chance of success. In spite of resistance from lecturers' and researchers' unions Valérie Pécresse, minister for higher education and research for four years, piloted through the reforms, until she was replaced last summer in a reshuffle by Laurent Wauquiez.
As a result, after five years of Sarkozy's administration, the higher education landscape of France has changed profoundly. The objectives of the loi relative aux libertés et responsabilités des universités (LRU), the law transferring autonomy to universities, are almost accomplished. A total of 73 universities, nearly 90%, have already become autonomous and the rest must follow suit by August.
However, a recent report by the European University Association (EUA), University Autonomy in Europe II - The scorecard revealed that the French state still plays a major role, allowing its universities less freedom than many other European countries.
In its comparison of 28 countries, the EUA classified higher education systems in four areas, in all of which France scored only medium-low or low: organisational autonomy (in which France was ranked 16th), financial autonomy (22nd), staffing autonomy (27th) and academic autonomy (28th). Universities are having to adapt to a new competitive approach that has replaced the egalitarian ethos that used to characterise the French university system. Universities must now submit bids for projects to gain greater shares of public investment.
Under Opération Campus, 12 pôles de recherche et enseignement supérieur (PRES) - regional clusters of universities, grandes écoles and research institutions - were selected to become centres of excellence, sharing EUR5 billion of extra funding. Nine other alliances were designated 'campuses of promise' and promised increased state support. The grouping of several institutions together, as in the PRES, is aimed at overcoming one of the supposed reasons for France's mediocre performance in world rankings.
The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), for example, takes the size of institutions into consideration, which does not suit France's dispersed higher education system, within which Paris has 17 universities, Bordeaux four, and several other towns have more than one each. Mergers are another development. The three Strasbourg universities became one institution at the beginning of 2009; and on 1 January the University of Aix-Marseille, also previously three universities, became the largest university in France with 70,000 students, more than 7,500 staff and a budget of EUR650 million.
As another part of its plan to create internationally competitive centres of higher education and research, the government launched Investissements d'Avenir (Investments of the Future), to finance strategic higher education and research projects with EUR22 billion from a EUR35 billion national loan set up in 2009. But some institutions are finding that competitive autonomy is not so straightforward.
Several - the exact number is unclear - are entering the new year with financial problems, after posting deficits for two years running. Their budgetary financial management has been taken over by their education authority; and the ministry and the CPU, the body representing university presidents, have set up a 'committee of peers' to help these universities overcome their financial difficulties. Soon after she became minister in 2007, Pécresse announced that one of her policy aims was to have two French universities in the top 20 world rankings by 2012, and 10 in the top 100.
There is still some way to go. In the latest ARWU rankings, in 2011, France had just three entries in the top 100, fewer than in 2007 when there were four. The most highly ranked, the University of Paris-Sud, was placed 40th. In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the Paris Ecole Normale Supérieure, in 59th place, was the highest ranked of the three French institutions in the leading 100.
It will not be known until after the elections whether Sarkozy's ambition to see France triumph in the 2012 university rankings will be realised. But the world will know on 6 May whether he will still be in charge and able to oversee the future of the nation's higher education for another five years.

By Francisco Marmolejo. Last December, I had the opportunity to participate in two different overseas meetings on higher-education internationalization within the same week. Since the themes of the conferences were similar, one might imagine that they would generate discussions that were similar. I was quite surprised that these events–held 6,300 miles apart from each other–in Penang, Malaysia, and in Lund, Sweden, seemed to be as distant on the rationale and focus for internationalization as they were geographically. In their own way, both events reflected the important dilemma that higher education faces in today’s world: how to serve the current and future needs of our societies in an increasingly competitive and internationalized knowledge-based economy.
The first of the two events that I attended was the Global Higher Education Forum, hosted on December 12-13 by the University of Sciences of Malaysia (USM), and co-convened by a variety of international organizations including the Association of African Universities (AAU), the International Association of Universities (IAU), and the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC), among others. At this conference, more than 400 delegates, overwhelmingly from developing countries, debated future scenarios for higher education in the world as well as threats and opportunities associated with them. Speakers emphasized the need to embed a socially-responsible approach when establishing national policies for higher education and when internationalization strategies are implemented at the institutional level. It was recognized that global growth in higher-education enrollment over the next 30 years will happen mostly in the developing world, that access to higher education continues to be highly selective, that participation in international mobility mostly benefits more well-off students, and that national policies in developed countries aimed at attracting and retaining talent from abroad are harmful to countries with emerging economies.
At the core of the discussions in Malaysia was the question of whether it is possible for higher-education institutions to help create a world with more justice, equality, intercultural understanding, and tolerance, while operating in a highly competitive environment with limited resources, increased accountability, and rankings.
Just two days later, attendees of the Conference on Strategic Management of Internationalization in Higher Education were convened at Lund University by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and its higher-education program (IMHE) in collaboration with the Nordic Association of University Administrators (NUAS) with the attempt to address a similar question–the ways in which the role of internationalization in higher education has been shifting in recent years and how institutions are coping with it.
Participants, mostly from European and other OECD market-based economies, largely agreed that higher education has not been immune to globalization, and, in fact, the internationalization agenda has moved from the margins of higher-education policy to a more central role and has become a topic of great interest not only to institutions but also to government policymakers.
In many OECD countries, internationalization of higher education has become an important component of national trade policies. It generates significant resources to institutions and local economies, it helps fill graduate programs and laboratories that otherwise might be languishing, it attracts talented individuals from many parts of the world, and it serves as key strategy for so-called soft diplomacy.
Although the rationale heard in Lund was different to the one being discussed in Penang, it was intriguing to hear speakers warn about the dangers of seeing international higher education as just another commodity, or about the risks associated with linking internationalization of higher education just to prestige and rankings. Some speakers very vocally insisted that higher-education institutions should be a voice for social justice and should not benefit only the elite.
After reflecting on the rationales for internationalization that prevailed at the two events, there seems to exist a split in approaches and expectations in the developing and the developed world in matters related to the goals and means of internationalization of higher education. Nevertheless, the need to find common ground is crucial. At the end of the day, the key challenge faced by higher-education leaders and practitioners in both the developing and the developed world is how to reconcile both perspectives in such a way that future graduates of our institutions will have both the knowledge base and the cultural and linguistic skills that are required in today’s competitive world, as well as a strong sense of social responsibility and commitment towards social justice globally and locally.
Certainly, there is no simple recipe to resolve these apparently competing positions, but comprehensive internationalization strategies like the ones described by John Hudzik at Nafsa have been successfully implemented in a variety of institutions and many valuable lessons can be learned from these cases.

Pourquoi le système de formation professionnelle est-il considéré comme peu efficace? Comment en faire bénéficier en priorité les moins qualifiés? Quel rôle les entreprises peuvent-elles jouer?
La minute Montaigne par Henri Lachmann, président du Conseil de surveillance de Schneider Electric et vice-président de l'Institut Montaigne. Voir cette minute Montaigne. Formation professionnelle: toutes les propositions de l'Institut Montaigne.

Les Régions consacrent plus de 5 milliards d’euros à la formation professionnelle et à l’apprentissage des jeunes et des adultes à la recherche d’emploi.
Agissant sur le terrain, tout à la fois en matière de formation professionnelle, de développement économique et d’aménagement du territoire, elles disposent des leviers pour que les formations mises en place correspondent aux besoins des intéressés, des entreprises et des territoires.
Pourtant,  cette politique manque encore d’un pilotage clair et d’une gouvernance efficace, avec une multiplication des guichets et des structures. De même,  l’Etat empiète sur les compétences des partenaires sociaux en opérant des ponctions systématiques sur le Fonds de Sécurisation des Parcours Professionnels et limite les fonds consacrés à la formation des demandeurs d’emplois.
Dans le même temps, L’Etat a déstabilisé Pôle Emploi.
- La limitation des moyens de Pôle Emploi eu égard à la montée du chômage, l’absence de formation des conseillers sur l’importance de la formation, ont pour conséquence des prescriptions de formation largement insuffisantes
- Le transfert des psychologues de l’AFPA à Pôle Emploi a conduit à les marginaliser dans une très grande structure et à fortement diluer l’impact de leurs actions d’accompagnement des plus fragiles.
- La compétence d’achat de formation confiée à Pôle Emploi  n’a fait que brouiller un peu plus le paysage de la commande publique et a eu des effets pervers: redondance de certains stages, difficultés de remplissage…
Dans ces conditions, les Régions revendiquent plus que jamais un véritable pilotage de la chaîne orientation-formation-emploi, pour une plus grande efficacité des dispositifs.
Voir aussi Pourquoi Sarkozy remet en avant la formation des chômeurs.

Par Michèle Boisseau. Dans le cadre des arrêtés des 9 novembre 2011 (JO du 4.12.2011) et 15 décembre 2011 (JO du 23.12.2011), Opcalia vient  de recevoir son agrément à compter du 1er janvier 2012, pour les contributions dues au titre du plan de formation et de la professionnalisation.
Organisme Paritaire Collecteur Agréé (OPCA) - interbranches, interprofessionnel et régional - au titre de la formation professionnelle continue, Opcalia finance la formation des salariés via différentes mesures: plan de formation, contrats et périodes de professionnalisation, DIF, bilans de compétences, VAE. L’OPCA propose des services de proximité: conseil RH, définition de projets de formation, recherche d’organismes de formation, mobilisation de ressources régionales, nationales et européennes pour abonder les Plans de formation des entreprises… Par ailleurs, Opcalia participe à l’effort national en faveur de l’emploi: promotion du contrat de professionnalisation et financement des contrats de sécurisation professionnelle (CSP) et des Préparations opérationnelles à l’emploi individuelles et collectives (POE et POEC).
Avec 27 branches professionnelles adhérentes au 1er janvier 2012: Activités du déchet; Cristallerie; 3D; Energie et environnement (Thermique); Industries du jouet et de la puériculture; Manutention et nettoyage aéroportuaire; Manutention et nettoyage ferroviaire; Prévention sécurité; Banque Populaire; Services de l’eau; Services funéraires; Transport aérien; Enseignement privé comportant plusieurs CCN (ex-Opca EFP); Télécommunications (ex-Auvicom); Crédit Agricole (ex-GDFPE); Mutualité Sociale Agricole (ex-GDFPE); Familles Rurales (ex-GDFPE); Maisons Familiales Rurales (ex-GDFPE); Chaussure (ex-FORTHAC); Couture (ex-FORTHAC); Cuirs & Peaux (ex-FORTHAC); Entretien textile (ex-FORTHAC); Habillement (ex-FORTHAC); Maroquinerie (ex-FORTHAC); Industrie textile (ex-FORTHAC); Entreprises de propreté (ex-FAF Propreté); Coopératives de consommateurs (ex- OPCAD Distrifaf).
Opcalia se place en 2012 au 2ème rang des collecteurs de la Formation professionnelle continue. Il compte aujourd’hui 91000 entreprises adhérentes pour un fonds gérés de 620 M€ soit  plus de 3M de salariés, 25 délégataires régionaux répartis sur tout le territoire y compris les DOM et 800 collaborateurs. En savoir plus.

Arrêté du 30 décembre 2011 relatif à la carte d'étudiant des métiers. JORF n°0303 du 31 décembre 2011, page 23022, texte n°63-NOR: ETSD1125919A.
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3
Voir aussi Extension aux apprentis des avantages de la carte d'étudiant.

Par Marc Landré. D'après les résultats du sondage 2012 des Apprentis d'Auteuil, seul un quart des dirigeants de PME ont entendu parler de la réforme de la taxe d'apprentissage entrée en vigueur au 1er janvier.
Danger! C'est la conclusion qui ressort du sondage annuel sur l'apprentissage réalisé auprès des patrons de PME pour les Apprentis d'Auteuil et dont le cru 2012, que Le Figaro dévoile, porte sur la réforme de la taxe d'apprentissage votée l'année dernière. À l'heure où le président de la République a fixé un objectif de progression du nombre d'alternants (800.000 en 2015) et que les recrutements ont progressé de 8,3% sur un an, seul un quart des patrons de PME ont entendu parler de cette réforme entrée en vigueur au 1er janvier et censée doper les embauches de jeunes en difficulté. Quant à ceux qui s'estiment informés (ils ne sont que 4%), 25% hésitent sur son efficacité. «Pour être efficace, le dispositif de la taxe d'apprentissage devrait être moins complexe et plus lisible», tranche Xavier Delattre, le directeur des ressources des Apprentis d'Auteuil.
Voir aussi Les employeurs boudent l'apprentissage.

« Faire en sorte que la formation des chômeurs devienne la priorité absolue, afin que chacun puisse se reconstruire un avenir. » C'est un sujet à la fois très consensuel et très politique qu'a évoqué le chef de l'Etat samedi. Il est consensuel car dans ces temps de crise à répétition de l'emploi, l'enjeu de l'entretien et de l'amélioration des compétences professionnelles des personnes privées d'emploi, dont ont bénéficié à des degrés divers quelque 576.000 chômeurs en 2009, est reconnu par tous comme majeur et peut donc figurer en bonne place au programme du sommet social du 18 janvier prochain. Même si le chef de l'Etat a pris soin de l'ancrer à droite, comme un devoir du demandeur d'emploi plus encore qu'un droit: « Former et pas seulement indemniser, tel doit être notre but. Personne ne doit pouvoir s'exonérer de cette obligation ni être exclu de cette possibilité », a souligné Nicolas Sarkozy.

Riche » début d'année pour les diplômés étrangers qui demandent le statut de salarié. Après la bronca de plusieurs mois provoquée par la circulaire conjointe du ministère de l'Intérieur et du ministère du Travail dite du 31 mai, une réunion interministérielle avec les partenaires concernés (Conférence des présidents d'université, Conférence des grandes écoles, etc.) est prévue demain avec à la clef un « texte complémentaire, explique-t-on au ministère de l'Intérieur, uniquement pour les diplômés étrangers hautement qualifiés [et non l'immigration professionnelle en général comme la circulaire du 31 mai, NDLR] et devra lever toutes les ambiguïtés ».
Cette circulaire sera, précise-t-on Place Beauvau, « publiée dans la foulée, il faut aller vite » et cosignée par les ministères du Travail, de l'Intérieur mais aussi de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche. Ceci intervient après le début d'amende honorable du gouvernement affichée fin novembre via le Premier ministre rappelant l'importance de « l'attractivité de l'enseignement supérieur » puis, avant Noël, par le ministre de l'Intérieur, Claude Guéant, promettant ce nouveau texte pour lever les « malentendus » qui ont entraîné le blocage du changement de statut pour plus de 900 diplômés étrangers en France (« Les Echos » du 26 décembre).
Hausse significative
Mais dans le cadre des revalorisations qui interviennent chaque année en loi de Finances sur les titres de séjour, ces diplômés étrangers demandant le statut de salarié (environ 6.000 par an) sont visés par une hausse significative. La taxe pour l'obtention d'un premier titre de séjour « salarié » est passée au 1er janvier de 85 euros à 349 euros, soit le tarif de droit commun d'une première délivrance d'un titre de séjour « salarié ». Par ailleurs, la taxe devra être payée non au moment de la délivrance du titre mais de sa demande. En cas de refus, 110 euros ne seront pas remboursés. Cette disposition entrera en vigueur après la publication d'un décret qui interviendra vers juillet 2012. « Cela n'est pas contradictoire avec l'attractivité, assure la Place Beauvau. On fait en sorte que ces ex-diplômés soient rémunérés à la hauteur de leurs qualifications et de leur poste, contre tout dumping social. Cette augmentation est sensible, mais pas insurmontable et nous rapproche de nos partenaires européens. » Même son de cloche dans l'entourage du ministre de l'Enseignement supérieur, Laurent Wauquiez, qui souligne des revalorisations « techniques, alors que notre niveau était inférieur à l'Allemagne, par exemple ».