O universitate ieşeană a primit jumătate de milion de lei pentru şcolirea piscicultorilor

 Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza“ a primit o finanţare de circa 550.000 de lei pentru a realiza un centru de consiliere destinat fermelor de acvacultură, care va fi amplasat la Staţiunea de Cercetare, Dezvoltare pentru Acvacultură şi Ecologie Acvatică Iaşi. În rândul acestei ramuri de finanţare, reprezentanţii universităţii spun că rezultatele plasează UAIC pe prima poziţie la nivel naţional în ceea ce priveşte punctajul obţinut, de 80 de puncte, acesta urmând a fi „primul şi singurul centru de consiliere pentru fermierii de acvacultură din Regiunea NE“. „Cu un buget total de 553.876,16 lei, proiectul îşi propune înfiinţarea şi dotarea unui centru de consiliere pentru fermele de acvacultură care, împreună cu o echipă de specialişti de la UAIC, să poată soluţiona diferite probleme legate de tehnologii generale de acvacultură, analize ale apei şi furajelor, servicii ecosistemice, conservarea mediilor umede, marketing şi planuri de afaceri în acvacultură“, au precizat reprezentanţii universităţii. Concret, vor fi realizate patru servicii de consiliere de natură tehnică, ştiinţifică, ecologică şi economică pentru fermierii din domeniu, având ca scop creşterea producţiei şi diversificarea activităţilor.

Publicație : Ziarul de Iași

Prorectorul Universitatii Cuza, profesorul Mihaela Onofrei la BZI LIVE: ”Ceea ce s-a facut in ultimii trei ani la UAIC este doar inceputul pentru proiecte si mai mari’

Marti, 2 iulie 2019, de la ora 15.00 in lumina reflectoarelor Studioului BZI LIVE a fost programata o noua reintalnire – dialog special alaturi de prof. univ. dr. Mihaela Onofrei, prorectorul in relatia cu studentii si cu mediul de afaceri a celei mai vechi institutii de invatamant superior din Romania – Alexandru Ioan Cuza (UAIC) din Iasi! Alaturi de domnia ai fost prezentate si detaliate o serie de date, informatii si noutati din viata prestigioasei institutii educationale! De asemenea, s-au adus in discutie proiectele didactice, educationale, de cercetare si ce vizeaza resursa umana•Emisiunea cu profesorul Mihaela Onofrei poate fi urmarita AICI

Marti, 2 iulie 2019, incepand cu ora 15.00, in Platoul Studioului BZI LIVE a fost invitata Prorectorul Universitatii Cuza, Mihaela Onofrei. Profesorul a vorbit despre proiectele dedicate dezvoltarii institutionale, a infrastructurii, modernizarea diverselor spatii de invatare, precizand ca ”ceea ce s-a facut in ultimii trei ani la UAIC este doar inceputul pentru proiecte si mai mari”. Emisiunea cu profesorul Mihaela Onofrei poate fi urmarita AICI

Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași

Studenţii, revoltaţi că trebuie să achite preţ întreg la biletele CTP

CTP Iaşi se apără spunând că instituţia nu aplică decât deciziile conducerilor universităţilor * acestea nu mai decontează transportul studenţilor în perioada iulie – septembrie, dând de înţeles că facilitatea este valabilă doar pe durata anului universitar, nu şi în vacanţe * reprezenaţii Ligii Studenţilor Iaşi susţin că măsura este absurdă întrucât calitatea de student nu se pierde pe durata vacanţelor, ci la încheierea studiilor universitare

La fel ca şi cei care urmează cursurile universitare, tarifele reduse pentru studenţi intră „în vacanţă”, odată cu încheierea cursurilor. Potrivit normelor legale în vigoare, studenţii pot beneficia de reduceri pentru transportul public numai în cursul anului universitar. Astfel, în urma solicitărilor transmise în mod expres de către fiecare universitate ieşeană în parte, studenţii nu mai pot beneficia de tarife reduse în vacanţă, nici prin intermediul aplicaţiei 24pay, nici în varianta clasică.

Anunţul a stârnit revolta studenţilor, care nu înţeleg de ce sunt puşi să achite bilet întreg atât timp cât încă deţin calitatea de student. La rândul lor, oficialii CTP Iaşi au reacţionat prin intermediul unui comunicat, în care li se explică studenţilor situaţia apărută. „Decizia privind suspendarea acordării studenţilor de beneficii pentru transportul public în Iaşi, pe perioada vacanţei, aparţine fiecărei universităţi în parte, dat fiind faptul că o parte din valoarea titlurilor de călătorie este suportată, prin acordarea de subvenţii, de către Ministerul Educaţiei. Instituţiile de învăţământ superior au transmis Companiei de Transport Public Iaşi adrese scrise, prin care solicitau întreruperea acordării acestor beneficii, iar CTP Iaşi a procedat la aplicarea deciziilor instituţiilor abilitate în acest sens”.

Iulie, luna în care facilităţile dispar

Comunicatul CTP Iaşi indică faptul că potrivit art. 136, alin. (1) din Legea 1/2011 „anul universitar începe, de regulă, în prima zi lucrătoare a lunii octombrie, include două semestre şi se finalizează la 30 septembrie din anul calendaristic următor. Un semestru are, de regulă, o durată de 14 săptămâni de activităţi didactice urmate, de regulă, de minimum 3 săptămâni de examene. Structura anului universitar se aprobă de către senatul universitar. În atribuirea creditelor de studii transferabile dintr-un semestru se are în vedere o perioadă de minimum 17 săptămâni”. De asemenea, în art. 205, alin. (2) din aceeaşi lege, „în timpul anului universitar, studenţii înmatriculaţi la forma de învăţământ cu frecvenţă, în instituţiile de învăţământ superior acreditate, în vârstă de până la 26 de ani, beneficiază de tarif redus cu minimum 50% pe mijloacele de transport local în comun, transportul intern auto, feroviar şi naval. Studenţii orfani sau proveniţi din casele de copii beneficiază de gratuitate pentru aceste categorii de transport”.

Nu în ultimul rând, în art. 13, alin. (3), din Ordinul 3666/30.03.2012 al Ministerului Educaţiei, Cercetării, Tineretului şi Sportului, privind aprobarea Codului drepturilor şi obligaţiilor studentului se menţionează faptul că  „studenţii beneficiază de următoarele reduceri de tarife: a) cu cel puţin 50% pentru transportul local în comun, de suprafaţă şi subteran, precum şi pentru transportul intern auto, feroviar şi naval, conform art. 205 alin. (2) din Legea nr. 1/2011, cu modificările şi completările ulterioare”. „Aşadar, coroborând textele de lege anterior menţionate cu adresele transmise de către fiecare universitate din municipiul Iaşi, reiese data limită până la care studenţii fiecărei instituţii de învăţământ superior au dreptul la tarife reduse pentru transportul public”, mai spun oficialii CTP.

Calendarul suspendării aplicării diferă de la inistituţie la instituţie. Astfel, începând de pe 1 iulie 2019, plătesc bilet întreg studenţii Universităţii de Medicină şi Farmacie Grigore T. Popa Iaşi şi cei ai Universităţii Naţională de Arte „George Enescu” Iaşi. Pe 7 iulie, facilitatea este eliminată pentru Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iaşi, iar pe 14 iulie pentru cele 10 facultăţi ale Universităţii Tehnică „Gheorghe Asachi”. În fine, pe 21 iulie, nu se mai aplică reducerea pentru studenţii Universităţii Tehnică „Gheorghe Asachi” din Iaşi (Facultatea de Automatică şi Calculatoare) şi pentru cei ai  Universităţii de Ştiinţe Agricole şi Medicină Veterinară din Iaşi.

Liga Studenţilor: „Şi dacă noi vă spunem că nu aveţi dreptate?”

În replică, reprezentanţii Ligii Studenţilor susţin că vor începe toate demersurile necesare ca reducerile pentru studenţi şi elevi să se aplice inclusiv în perioada vacanţei! Este invocat acelaşi aliniat din Legea Educaţiei Naţionale nr. 1/2011 – art. 136, alin. (1) – dar interpretat altfel, în sensul că respectiva „calitatea de student nu încetează odată cu începutul vacanţei, ci cu terminarea studiilor! „Compania de Transport Public Iaşi susţine în mod eronat că tarifele reduse pentru studenţi intră în vacanţă, odată cu încheierea cursurilor universitare, iar pe perioada iulie-septembrie studenţii vor trebui să plătească biletele şi abonamentele la tarif întreg. Liga Studenţilor – LS IAŞI a început deja toate demersurile necesare ca reducerile pentru studenţi şi elevi să se aplice inclusiv în perioada vacanţei! Reducerea cu 50% pentru studenţi şi elevi a tarifelor la transportul local în comun este un rezultat al demersurilor LS IAŞI din perioada ianuarie – martie 2016, iar în ultimii trei ani zeci de mii de studenţi şi elevi au beneficiat de roadele activităţii noastre de reprezentare”, susţin reprezentanţii studenţilor.

Publicație : Evenimentul

 

Reprezentanţii studenţilor din România reacţionează faţă declaraţia Ministrului Educaţiei privind recrutarea studenţilor în PSD

Uniunea Studenţilor din România (USR) taxează declaraţia Ministrului Educaţiei Naţionale, Ecaterina Andronescu, conform căreia studenţii ar trebui să fie implicaţi în departamentele şi structurile partidului.

„Cred că trebuie să ne formăm oamenii pregătiţi pentru a construi viitorul. Da, cred că trebuie să aducem în departamentele noastre, să aducem în structurile noastre, oameni care au ce spune: tineri corporatişti, studenţi. Să îi chemăm alături de noi, să discutăm cu ei, să îi implicăm în ceea ce vrem noi să facem pentru societatea românească”, a afirmat Ecaterina Andronescu la Congresul Partidului Social Democrat.

Declaraţia a venit în contradicţie cu acţiunile ministrului, din luna mai, spun reprezentanţii studenţilor, „aceasta refuzând dialogul şi ignorând părerile a peste zece mii de studenţi. Aşa cum am menţionat în comunicatul lansat în urma Congresului Studenţilor din România, doamna Ecaterina Andronescu nu a onorat invitaţia Uniunii Studenţilor din România de a participa la dialog cu reprezentanţii studenţilor din ţară. Mai mult decât atât, deşi aceasta a fost contactată de mai multe ori, nu a răspuns la solicitările noastre în vederea prezentării şi soluţionării rezoluţiilor care au reieşit în urma plenarei la care au participat studenţi din toate colţurile ţării”, a mai transmis USR.

Uniunea spune că deşi a avut loc o întâlnire între delegaţia Uniunii Studenţilor din România şi doamna ministru, unde s-au supus atenţiei o serie de probleme relevante, măsurile în vederea soluţionării acestora au întârziat să apară. „Subliniem importanţa dialogului între factorii politici şi societatea civilă şi solicităm deschiderea acestora spre nevoile studenţilor şi prioritizarea educaţiei. Sperăm ca declaraţiile şi planurile doamnei ministru să se reflecte şi în relaţia dintre instituţii şi Uniunea Studenţilor din România, astfel încât, aceasta să fie consultată în vederea deciziilor care vizează în mod direct studenţii”, atrage atenţia organizaţia.

Reprezentanţii cer ca decidenţii să ia în calcul dorinţele şi cerinţele studenţilor. „Pentru a deveni o societate dezvoltată şi în ton cu secolul în care ne aflăm, este necesar să ne concentrăm resursele către obiective realiste de viitor prin ascultarea şi înţelegerea vocii studenţilor”, a conchis conducerea organizaţiei studenţeşti.

Publicație : Adevărul

 

Black academics bear brunt of university work on race equality

From mentoring to focus groups ethnic minority academics and students are under pressure to close the 13% attainment gap

Earlier this year, Maxine Thomas-Asante asked her university if she could pause her work supporting black, Asian and minority ethnic students. She was running for office at her students’ union, finishing coursework and preparing for her final exams. “I had to say I’m going to take a break.”

For the past two years, Thomas-Asante, co-president for democracy and education at Soas University of London student union, has attended meetings, panel discussions and focus groups, created mentoring schemes, organised events, listened to the problems experienced by BAME students and liaised between them and academic staff.

At first, she did so voluntarily, but it is now a paid role after she was advised by a BAME staff member not to work for free. While she loves doing the job and values the way the university involves students in addressing the attainment gap, she says it’s a lot of psychological pressure. “Just because it’s paid doesn’t mean it’s any less difficult. It’s an immense amount of work that you cannot do alone. It’s not enough always for universities to say the work is being done because students are doing it,” she says.

It is not only BAME students who bear the brunt of schemes to address inequality – academic staff from under-represented groups feel it too. Kalwant Bhopal, professor of education and social justice at the University of Birmingham, says that if there are issues around race and racial inequality “there seems to be an expectation that this should fall as a burden on BAME groups”.

While she is interested and passionate about race (her research focus is minority ethnic academics in higher education and she recently published a book on white privilege), she says: “even if I wasn’t, there has always been an expectation on me that I should be doing BAME work”.

Although Bhopal is now a senior academic, she still sometimes feels she is a tick-box presence on a panel. She also says much of the work towards gaining race equality charter awards can fall on BAME staff, often without recognition in workload allocations or promotion paths.

“The BAME attainment gap should be something everyone should be working to address, not just a particular group,” she says.

Amatey Doku, vice president at the National Union of Students says: ‘It’s reproducing some of the inequalities’. Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Observer

This has become more pressing since the Office for Students, which regulates universities, introduced targets to eliminate gaps between different students in access and attainment. The aim is that within 20 years such gaps should be gone.

The numbers are stark. Among 2017-18 home graduates at UK universities, white students were around 13% more likely to get a first-class or upper second-class degree than students from black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds; the gap between white and black students was even wider, at 21%. White students outperformed students of all other ethnicities in England even when taking into account their previous qualifications.

There are smaller gaps (2.9%) between disabled and non-disabled students, while the latest figures show a 10% gap in degree attainment between those from the poorest and most well-off areas.

Last month the Centre for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education was set up by King’s College London, Nottingham Trent University and a public-private agency, the Behavioural Insights Team. It aims to collect data and to research the kinds of interventions most likely to be effective. It will focus on inequalities experienced by a number of minority groups, not only in terms of race but social class, care leavers, students estranged from their parents, refugees and gypsy and traveller groups.

Susannah Hume, director of the establishment phase of the centre and associate director for What Works at King’s College London, says awareness of inequalities has been around for a while but it is only recently that improvements in collecting and publishing data have shown how bad they are. The aim is to identify concrete solutions, based on research, and to supply evidence to back up the good work taking place.

“There are a lot of things institutions do, but the evidence base around whether they are changing outcomes for the students is low,” she says.

While the centre will focus on finding evidence, Hume recognises the need for cultural change in institutions so that people act on the evidence – and in a way that does not create other problems. “It’s a challenge to be mindful of the fact that you need both to be engaging people about things that affect them but not demand too much of their time,” she says.

This has been recognised as an issue in relation to gender. In a journal article published earlier this year, Bruce Macfarlane and Damon Burg described the “academic housework trap”, where female academics tend to feel more responsibility than men to act as mentors and to advance the cause of gender equality, particularly in science, where women are under-represented. The researchers suggest the extra work involved can slow women’s career paths.

Amatey Doku, vice president at the National Union of Students, says staff who are in a minority can find it hard to speak up when they need support. “It’s not the case that academics don’t want to do this, but if it is not acknowledged in the broader system it ends up being a bigger burden on them and reproducing some of the inequalities,” he says.

He would like to see the work by BAME staff and students being formalised, so that they are given recognition and training. “You are asking students to give their expertise where in other areas you would pay consultants,” he says. “So you should pay them or give them a placement so they have something to show for it.”

Many institutions already do this. Coventry University offers paid internships and mentors for students working with course teams to refresh the curriculum to make it more inclusive. At Nottingham Trent University, student mentors are paid to guide students through their first year and arrange activities.

Thomas-Asante says the way her fellow students open up and confide in her “is a beautiful thing” but it can be mentally exhausting. “We engage with the racial attainment gap in terms of numbers,” she says. “But these are people.”

Publicație : The Guardian

Students are children and still need pastoral guidance

Newly arrived undergraduates are typically too immature to be trusted with the conduct of their own lives, says Felipe Fernández-Armesto

On a summer evening in 1972, the much-loved historian C.E. Stevens – “Tom Brown”, as Tolkien reputedly nicknamed him – was regaling the common room with the tale of his amorous undergraduate adventure in the 1920s, when paternalism was a virtue and intrusiveness a duty.

“Is she the kind of young person,” he recalled the dean’s asking, “whom you would take home to your mother?”

The implied reproof was part of a larger story. In 1970, the reduction of the age of majority in the UK had turned freshmen into official adults. Dons, former custodians of their pupils’ morals, suddenly became landlords uncertain of their rights and duties towards the young citizens they housed. College authorities responded by abandoning serious commitment to pastoral care and confiding in students’ fictive maturity. The consequent ill effects have been getting worse ever since.

Newly arrived undergraduates – if my perceptions are valid – are typically too immature to be trusted with the conduct of their own lives, much less with the wider responsibilities we thrust upon them. One of the first self-revelations I got as a young teacher was of my own recent naivety, as I noticed how childish freshmen seemed. I must have seemed similarly infantile to my elders at the same stage.

I suspect that all of us who work in universities notice how rapidly many students grow up between matriculation and the end of the second year. We may congratulate ourselves – or, more properly, them – on progressing so fast, but part of the consequence is realisation that when they first join us they are adult, if at all, in only a limited sense.

“They get younger every year,” according to the cliché with which old professors expiate ageing. It would be fairer to say that freshmen get more immature. As life lengthens, so does each phase of life. On average, Westerners now spend longer in the parental nest and marry later than in the previous two or three generations. They postpone financial independence and parenthood.

When youngsters leave school, these typical thresholds of adult life seem correspondingly further off than previously. When they arrive at university they are, on average, less worldly-wise. Fewer of them have lived away from home. They have spent less time with books and therefore lack the vicarious experience that wide reading brings. They have been subjected to less rigorous routines of learning; so they know less and are less prepared to be challenged or surprised. They have been less disciplined, less brutalised, less lied to, less berated, less shamed and less humiliated by parents, priests, teachers and drill sergeants. In other words, they have seen less of life. One of my students recently told me he had never witnessed violence. They have a lot of growing up to do.

Instead of treating them as the children they often still are, we encumber them with fearsome responsibilities – for their own diets, sex lives, manners and, within the law, substance misuse. We menace them with the imminence of a hostile world, formerly unknown to them, in readiness for which – to be equipped for ruthless, potentially beggaring competition – they must study uncongenial, economically exploitable subjects and achieve demanding qualifications.

We make them sign codes and contracts that they often, evidently, do not understand. We give them the civic responsibility of voters and, with varying degrees of sincerity, admit them to roles in the governance of the universities to which they belong. We treat with unbecoming respect their half-baked, childish opinions on the propriety of free speech, the display of politically incorrect imagery, or the tenure of infelicitously outspoken colleagues.

Above all, we heap debt on our young and enfeoff their futures even before they have had a chance to live out youth. We consign them to misery founded on falsehood: that 18-year-olds are typically ready to look after themselves and fit to constrain their elders. Tiny tots enjoy playing doctors and nurses or cops and robbers. In adolescence, however, affected adulthood is no fun. Gaudeamus? No chance, in the solemn, humourless world of “woke” conformity, where silliness is proscribed and irresponsibility is unacceptable. Students’ discontent festers, while their mental health worsens and suicide rates rise. We pile too much on shoulders not yet strong enough to bear it. And – on the pretence that they are grown-ups – we fail to give students enough care.

It is too late to reverse most of what has already gone wrong. To postpone the age of majority, for instance, would be to deprive unconsenting citizens of existing rights. But we can resist calls to drop the threshold from 18 to 16 years old. To reunite learning and laughter would require a makeover of the academic profession; but we can proclaim the truth that education needs entertainment. We can stop encouraging the young in brash arrogance and alert them candidly to the advisability of deferring demands unbacked by the wisdom that years of study and reflection earn. And we can restore a little of the pastoral solicitude Tom Brown Stevens remembered: not in a spirit of prurient or puritanical interference in our students’ lives, but in due concern for their welfare, and the assurance that while – on matters beyond the classroom – they are too old to be told what to do, most of them are still young enough to be guided.

Publicație : The Times

‘Cash-for-access’ claim over £1 million bill for Whitehall ties

Government scheme funded by four universities raises concern in sector over ‘surprising flow of resources’

The UK government has been criticised for charging four universities a combined £1 million to cover the cost of a team of officials who help Whitehall departments “weave academic insight into the policymaking process”.

One source questioned whether the Open Innovation Team project amounted to universities being offered a “form of cash-for-access to the policy process”. The Cabinet Office announced last month that the scheme would be extended for a further three years, after launching as a pilot in 2016, with four institutions – Brunel University London, Lancaster University, and the universities of Essex and York – agreeing a “£1 million three-year funding deal”.

Oliver Dowden, the minister for implementation, said at the time that each university “will contribute £85,000 per year to help us cover staff and project costs for a team of officials dedicated to helping Whitehall departments weave academic insight into the policy-making process.

“In return, our partners will receive a range of benefits designed to boost collaboration with their academics and educate their students about the policymaking process.”

He added that “while officials will work closely with these partners, it won’t be an exclusive relationship” and civil servants “will continue to work with academics from other institutions, just as they have since the team was set up”.

The initial trial, which ran from 2016 to 2018, and was funded by Lancaster alongside the universities of Bath, Southampton and Warwick, was billed by the Cabinet Office as having helped government officials to “connect with more than 500 academics and deliver almost 30 projects, covering some of the government’s key policy priorities”, including “white papers on mental health and online harm, as well as projects on economic growth and gender equality”.

But some in the higher education sector have argued that the government should be opening up to academic expertise as a matter of course, without charge. One source suggested to Times Higher Education that some universities were deterred from joining on principle by the required payments.

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute and a former special adviser in government, said that while it was welcome to see policymakers engaging with academics and no minister should be criticised for engaging with research, he was “surprised by the flow of resources”.

“Research is underfunded in universities as it is…and we are not on the right trajectory to hit the government’s own research spending targets. So the government urgently needs to spend more of its own resources on research,” he said.

“Plus, charging a handful of universities to have impact seems a little odd when policymakers should be searching for the best policy solutions from all sources.”

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “Working with academics through the Open Innovation Team has brought expertise and fresh thinking into how government officials approach some of the most challenging policy issues.

“The team works with universities from across the sector, not just those who sponsor the project, to generate new ideas to help improve the work of government.”

Publicație : The Times

Backbench bid to outlaw essay mills in England and Wales launched

Lord Storey’s private member’s bill would make it illegal to provide or to advertise contract cheating services

The private member’s bill, being laid before Parliament by Lord Storey, the Liberal Democrat education spokesman in the House of Lords, would “make it an offence to provide or advertise cheating services for higher education assessments” for financial gain.

Essay mills, companies that write assessments for students for a fee, have become a growing global problem for higher education. A 2018 study found that as many as one in seven students worldwide admitted to using contract cheating services and that the numbers were increasing.

Some territories have already moved to outlaw essay mills, including New Zealand and several US states. The Republic of Ireland has proposed similar legislation.

Lord Storey previously proposed an amendment to the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 that would have outlawed essay mills, but it was not adopted.

“The government did say at the time that if the problem wasn’t solved by voluntary means, they would look at legislation – and it has certainly not been solved,” he said.

Last year, Sam Gyimah, who was then universities minster, said that legislative options “were not off the table” after more than 40 higher education leaders called for the government to introduce a ban.

Under Lord Storey’s higher education cheating services prohibition bill, a person would commit an offence if they provided – or arranged for someone else to provide – any service that would complete an assignment, examination or any other work that a student is required to complete personally as part of a higher education course, in return for financial gain. They would also commit an offence if they advertised any of these services.

Lord Storey told Times Higher Education that the problem of essay mills was “clearly getting worse, and the only way it is going to be curtailed is by legislation”.

“You can have voluntary codes and alert students to the dangers, but these companies are there to make profits off the back of young people, and they prey on them,” he said.

For this reason, the bill targeted the essay mills themselves and did not seek to criminalise students, Lord Storey explained.

In an online global poll conducted by THE earlier this year, 84 per cent of respondents said that they believed that essay mills should be illegal. A significant minority – 41 per cent – argued that students should be criminalised for using such contract cheating services.

Michael Draper, professor of legal studies at Swansea University, who worked on the bill, said the new offence “will not allow essay mills to simply hide behind the small print of disclaimers”.

“They must take positive steps to ensure that the essay will not be submitted as a student’s own work,” he said. “To commit the offence, a provider does not need to intend the essay to be submitted or to have knowledge that this will or may happen.”

Professor Draper added: “Unlike in Australia, where the proposal for an offence as currently drafted – controversially – will catch friends and family who assist with work, our proposal will exclude this possibility as the offence will be committed only when the provider receives a financial gain or benefit, and friends and family do not normally receive such a gain.”

Publicație : The Times

« Des diplômes universitaires répondant aux besoins du marché du travail »

Le processus de création d’une nouvelle filière prend « généralement un an », selon Benoît Tock. Le vice-président formation à l’université de Strasbourg (Unistra) déplore que les universités manquent de « ressources propres supplémentaires » pour ouvrir des formations.

« Des fonds sont nécessaires pour recruter des enseignants, vacataires ou chargés de cours extérieurs, qui sont aussi des professionnels, dont les interventions sont très importantes sur ce type de formations» pour ouvrir des formations innovantes » Benoît Tock, vice-président formation à l’université de Strasbourg (Unistra) C.Schröder-Université de Strasbourg

Comment l’université identifie-t-elle les besoins qui débouchent sur la création d’une formation rare, voire unique, en France ?

Cela passe surtout par le contact avec le monde des entreprises, qui peuvent signaler tel ou tel besoin. C’est notamment le cas en IUT, dans les écoles et les composantes de l’université qui proposent des formations en alternance et en apprentissage. Le processus de création d’une nouvelle filière prend généralement un an. Pour des formations menant à des diplômes nationaux, on se cale sur la rentrée universitaire pour l’ouverture. La dernière formation neuve et forte ouverte à l’Unistra, proposée par la grande école d’ingénieurs Télécom Physique Strasbourg, mène à un diplôme et un titre d’ingénieur informatique et réseaux, elle est axée sur les défis de la science de données et de l’intelligence artificielle.

Quid du financement de ces nouvelles formations ?

Les composantes savent que le niveau central de l’université n’a pas de ressources propres supplémentaires à fournir et qu’elles doivent trouver des financements. Des fonds sont nécessaires pour recruter des enseignants, vacataires ou chargés de cours extérieurs, des professionnels dont les interventions sont très importantes sur ce type de formations. Cela peut se faire en réduisant d’autres activités et surtout par l’apprentissage et l’alternance, qui apportent de nouveaux revenus. Pour ouvrir une licence pro préparant au métier de guide-conférencier – impossible à proposer en alternance, car il s’agit d’un métier d’indépendants –, la faculté des sciences historiques a eu recours à un financement IDEX. Mais il ne s’agit pas d’un financement pérenne.

L’existence de licences professionnelles rares renforce-t-elle l’attractivité de l’université au niveau national ?

Toutes les formations spécifiques attirent des étudiants de différentes régions françaises. Mais l’objectif de ces licences est d’abord de répondre aux besoins du marché du travail, donc d’avoir un excellent taux d’insertion. Il arrive d’ailleurs que des titulaires d’un master valident ensuite une licence professionnelle, lorsqu’ils échouent aux concours de l’enseignement notamment. Cela peut être une solution pour se professionnaliser après avoir étudié des choses passionnantes en arts, lettres et langues ou en sciences humaines et sociales.

Des étudiants poursuivent également leurs études après la licence professionnelle…

Le ministère de l’enseignement supérieur nous surveille sur ce point. Au-delà de 20 % de poursuite d’études, une licence professionnelle peut être jugée trop peu professionnalisante aux yeux de la tutelle, susceptible de rechigner alors à renouveler une accréditation. Néanmoins, on peut difficilement interdire à des étudiants d’aller en master après la licence pro…

Publicație : Le Monde