Patru dintre proiectele Universității Tehnice, cele mai performante din țară la competiția pentru Fondul de Dezvoltare Instituțională
Universitatea Tehnică „Gheorghe Asachi” din Iași (TUIASI) a obținut aproximativ 2,1 milioane de lei din competiția pentru Fondul de Dezvoltare Instituțională de anul acesta, având aprobate șase proiecte în total, câte unul pe fiecare domeniu.
TUIASI continuă performanțele din ultimii ani la competiția FDI, fiind instituția de învățământ superior din țară cu cele mai multe proiecte evaluate pe primele trei poziții din domeniile respective. În mod concret, Politehnica ieșeană a avut proiectele cu cel mai mare punctaj din țară la domeniile 1 și 3, care vizează „creşterea echităţii sociale, în vederea incluziunii sociale și sporirea accesului la învățământul superior, corelarea ofertei educaţionale cu cererea pieţei muncii (inclusiv cele privitoare la consilierea și orientarea în carieră)”, respectiv „asigurarea funcționării în bune condiții a grădinilor botanice universitare, a stațiunilor didactice, a bazelor de practică și a altor infrastructuri de susținere a activităților didactice din cadrul universităţilor”.
La domeniul 6, care vizează „susținerea cercetării de excelență din universități”, proiectul propus de cercetătorii TUIASI a fost al doilea cel mai bine clasat, iar la domeniul 4, mai exact „susținerea activităților societăților antreprenoriale studențești (SAS) din cadrul universităților”, Universitatea Tehnică a propus un proiect care a fost evaluat pe poziția a treia la nivel național.
Celelalte două domenii unde au fost aprobate pentru finanțare proiectele TUIASI sunt „îmbunătățirea calității activității didactice, inclusiv a respectării deontologiei și eticii academice” și „internaționalizarea învățământului superior din România”.
Suma câștigată în acest an poziționează Politehnica ieșeană pe locul al treilea la nivel național între cele 40 de universități care nu posedă grădini botanice, acestea din urmă având o finanțare mai mare din start cu 50% mai mare la domeniul 3.
„Rezultatele din acest an ale competiției proiectelor FDI, o competiție care devine tot mai consistentă, confirmă expertiza noastră, care și în acest an ne-a plasat în topul universităților românești. Faptul că am reușit ca în cadrul a patru domenii să fim pe podium, la două fiind primii, reprezintă o performanță unică. În acest an, cu ajutorul fondurilor câștigate, vom dezvolta proiectele anterioare, proiecte de succes, după cum s-a văzut”, a declarat prof. univ. dr. ing. Dan Cașcaval, rectorul TUIASI.
În acest an, în competiția pentru Fondul de Dezvoltare Instituțională (FDI) au fost depuse 263 de proiecte ale universităților de stat, pentru cele șase domenii de finanțare.
Publicație : Ziarul de Iași
Sorin Câmpeanu, Consiliul Rectorilor: Sunt trei scenarii, nu se îngheaţă anul şcolar
Preşedintele Consiliului Naţional al Rectorilor, Sorin Câmpeanu, a declarat că în prezent, la ministerul Educaţiei se lucrează la trei scenarii şi niciunul nu implică îngheţarea anului şcolar.
Sorin Câmpeanu, fost ministru al Educaţiei, a declarat la Realitatea Plus faptul că nu se va îngheţa anul şcolar dar că în acest moment se lucrează pe scenarii care variază de la pesimism la optimism în funcţie de conjuctura care va urma.
Astfel, în cel mai bun caz, şcoala se va relua din luna mai iar în cel mai rău caz, examenele se vor da în lunile august-septembrie.
„Se lucrează la trei scenarii, unul este optimist, ia în considerare reluarea şcolii la începutul lunii mai, iar cel mai puţin optimist ia în calcul amânarea examenului pentru finalul clasei a VIII-a, Evaluarea Naţională, care ar putea fi organizat la sfârşitul lunii august. În acest al treilea scenariu, Bacalaureatul ar putea fi la jumătatea lunii septembrie. Deci asta este plaja de la cel mai optimist scenariu, la cel mai pesimist. Niciunul dintre scenarii nu ia în calcul îngheţarea sau repetarea anului şcolar. Nici nu ar avea cum să se întâmple asta în condiţiile în care 70% din materie fost ocupată predată”, a spus Câmpeanu, conform Edupedu.
În tot sistemul preuniversitar cursurile au fost suspendate pe 11 martie până pe 16 aprilie. Ministrul Educaţiei a anunţat apoi că şcolile ar putea fi închise până după Paşte.
”Îîn ceea ce-i priveşte pe elevii care trebuie să susţină examenele de Evaluare Naţională, Bacalaureat sau studenţii care trebuie să îşi susţină licenţa, MEC va prezenta săptămâna aceasta variantele posibile pe care le ia în calcul în situaţia în care se va prelungi această stare de urgenţă”, a declarat Monica Anisie, ministrul Educaţiei, dezminţind declaraţia vicepremierului Raluca Turcan, care iniţial spuse că se poate lua în calcul şi îngheţarea anului şcolar.
Publicație : Adevărul
Thousands of students stranded at university amid UK lockdown
Coronavirus pandemic leaves international and British students in turmoil
Thousands of students are stranded in universities across the UK as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, prompting calls for support from vice-chancellors.
Among them are international students from all over the world who have been unable to get flights home, and UK students who are stuck because they have no other home to go to, either because they are care leavers or are estranged from their families.
As the scale and severity of the pandemic became apparent, universities around the country told students their lessons and assessments would go online and in recent days many have gone home for their own safety.
International students who either failed to book flights quickly enough or could not afford to now find themselves stuck in the UK for the foreseeable future.
Morgan Fairless, 22, a final year politics and philosophy student at the London School of Economics is unable to get back to his home in Uruguay as flights have been cancelled. “The reality is I have no way of getting home for the foreseeable future. I’m OK being here, but it’s also about your family members back home. For now everything is fine. I have no idea how long I will be fine for.”
Vincent Carse, 22, a third-year economics student at LSE, can’t get home to Sydney, Australia. “The crisis unfolded a bit quickly for me. I decided to stay, but it’s dawned on me that I can’t really leave if I want to now. That decision needed to be made a week ago.”
On Tuesday, the University of Sunderland began to physically shut down its campus in line with government guidance and meetings were underway about how best to look after the remaining 800 students who have been unable to leave, including 230 international students, some of whom could not afford flights home.
“My heart goes to those students,” said vice-chancellor, Sir David Bell. “For most of us, yes, this is difficult but we’ve got family to surround us in one way or another. For our international students it’s really hard to think what they will be feeling. We will be trying to do all we can to support them.”
John Cater, vice-chancellor of Edge Hill University, where about 200 students are stranded unable to go home, including international students from China, Africa and Europe, said: “The first thing we are concerned about is making sure the students and staff are as safe as possible. The majority of students have gone home.”
Those who remain are being moved into ensuite accommodation with just a couple of students in each flat to help ensure physical distancing. University staff are loading up fridges and freezers with food and providing cleaning materials.
A particularly vulnerable group are students who have left care or are estranged from their families. Campaigning groups who support them have written to every vice-chancellor, urging them to support students who are stranded at university with no family networks during the Covid-19 emergency.
The letter, from Stand Alone, which supports people who are estranged, and the National Network for the Education of Care Leavers, said: “For many of these students, university or college provides their home, their support network and their stability.
“We ask you at this difficult moment to make sure they continue to be provided for and can feel safe and supported. It would be a catastrophe if any of our estranged or care experienced students found that they had to leave university as direct or indirect consequences of the current circumstances or were made homeless.”
One student, who did not wish to be named but is estranged from his family and has nowhere else to go, described self-isolating at a university: “A lot of friends that have families have gone. They’ve left. The campus is barren. It looks dead. No one is here.”
He said there had been general emails to all students, but no direct contact from his university offering him support as a vulnerable student. “All of our facilities have been closed from 5pm yesterday. I can’t access the library any more. I had a part-time job with the university. I don’t know what’s happening with that. I’m worried about money.”
Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors, said many UK based and international students had already returned home. “However universities know that some students, international students who do not have a home in the UK, care leavers and others, will not be able to do so and have been planning accordingly to ensure they continue to support those students.
“Different universities will have different challenges but a key focus will be on ensuring these students have everything they need and have plans in place to ensure that critical services – heating, water and electricity, for example, are maintained. In some cases, this may mean students being moved from their normal accommodation to places where it is easier for the university to ensure they are looked after.”
Publicație : The Guardian
Students criticise Royal College of Art's plan to hold degree show online
Students say online degree shows due to coronavirus would be unworkable and a waste of their tuition fees
The Royal College of Art (RCA) is facing a backlash from thousands of students and artists over their decision to make their degree shows online-only for the first time ever due to the coronavirus pandemic.
More than 4,500 people, including Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Leckey, have signed a petition calling on the RCA to suspend its programmes and postpone the exhibition until it is safe to return to the college.
The students behind the petition, who wish to remain anonymous, said RCA had decided to hold a virtual exhibition without consulting those due to graduate this summer.
They added that final year-students were currently unable to access their studios or workshop facilities at the college, meaning they were unable to complete work for the virtual show.
The students called on the college to postpone all education until it was safe to return to the studios, with a guarantee that the show would be held at a future date, whether later this summer or in a year’s time. “They should promise to fulfil their agreement with us, rather than getting rid of us quickly in order to get the next cohort in,” they said in a statement.
One contemporary art student said it would be a huge disappointment to be unable to stage her work in a real life exhibition “after two years of work, taking on thousands of pounds in loans, and working side-jobs around the clock in order to realise it”.
She said her degree show work – a room-sized video and virtual-reality installation of an estate agent for property on a floating island to escape an apocalypse – required the audience to physically engage with it in a way “impossible to simulate online”.
A painting student added: “A lot of my work is installed in unusual ways or not even on the wall. The idea of a virtual show is ridiculous to those of us who don’t work in digital media, ie the great majority of students.”
Leckey called on the RCA to postpone its graduate show, adding that a virtual exhibition could not replicate the experience of seeing the work in person. “All that student debt accrued only to be frustrated by a false equivalence,” he said. “Just postpone the show like the other colleges have.”
Artist and RCA alumnus Tim Stoner said the RCA’s decision to hold a virtual show was “an utter disgrace”. In an Instagram post he accused the college of treating the students appallingly, adding: “Denying this year’s artists the opportunity to experience what EVERY student in the past has done is cheating them out of one of the most important things the college offers.”
But artist Ryan Gander said: “There are a lot of hardships at the moment for a lot of people, real hardships. For me only having a degree show online might be a shame but it’s not a real hardship.”
A spokesman for the RCA said it had assessed the possibility of deferring the show until September or October but decided “this was not realistically feasible”.
“One significant difficulty is that many students will be unable to stay in London for that extended period,” he added. “To commit them to the significant additional costs that would be involved, and further costs to return to London in the future with the present level of uncertainty seems unreasonable. The latest reports from the World Health Organisation and others suggest that life will not have returned to normal by September.”
The University of the Arts London announced today that there would be an online exhibition of students work this summer, followed by a physical show later in the year, “subject to the public emergency” over the pandemic.
Publicație : The Guardian
Last year one Oxford college admitted 96% of its students from state schools. How did they do it?
Mansfield College has risen up the league tables through its outstanding outreach work
Erin Minogue has vivid memories of her Oxbridge application process. The words hard and daunting crop up frequently as she describes her journey from a Midlands comprehensive, then sixth-form college, to one of the most elite universities in the world.
Oxford has felt “one step removed from me”, she explains. “A friend of a friend had been, but I didn’t have any family reference points so it felt very tough.”
Now, about to sit her English finals, Minogue is a testament to one Oxford college’s stunning success in the rebalancing of state and private school Oxbridge entry, one of the most hotly contested issues in public education.
Only 7% of the school-age population attends fee-paying schools, yet typically between 30% and 40% of Oxbridge undergraduates come from the private sector. Attempts to redress this imbalance invariably lead to allegations of social engineering if private school pupils appear to be discriminated against, or unfairness and unconscious bias if the status quo persists.
Yet in the past two years Mansfield College has averaged entry from the state sector almost in line with the proportions who go to state schools nationally. The majority of students come from within the UK; 96% of the 2019 entry came from state schools, as do 90% of offer holders for this year’s admissions.
More significantly, the majority of those offers come from non-selective state schools and include a higher percentage of disadvantaged pupils, those from BAME backgrounds and from areas with low progression to higher education than the rest of the university. So how have they pulled it off, and why can’t others?
According to Mansfield’s new principal, Helen Mountfield, they could. Mountfield is a barrister and former south London comprehensive schoolgirl – although from a middle-class professional family – who made it to one of the most exclusive colleges, Magdalen, in the 1980s.
She believes Mansfield’s success, whereby the college has moved steadily up the Oxford Norrington table from bottom in 2007 to fifth this year, is down to its longstanding outreach work, its approach of putting each applicant’s achievements in context and the college’s “authentic” culture.
Helen Mountfield, principal: ‘We want the people who will walk out of the door as the finished article’. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian
“My answer to the social engineering point is that we don’t believe we are taking less clever people to make up for disadvantage. We are looking for the cleverest people from a pool where everyone is clever. We want the people who will walk out of the door as the finished article, not those who will walk in the door as the finished article,” she says.
A decision was taken two decades ago to reach out to the further education and sixth-form college sector, which meant the numbers from those sectors gradually increased so the Mansfield applicant pool is now about 80% state school.
The college employs two expert access officers and makes a determined effort to present itself as a place that is open; the website’s headline reads: “Open, Friendly, Welcoming. Mansfield has the highest state sector intake of Oxford”.
“Applicants don’t have to worry about being in a cultural minority here, or whether they would fit in,” says Mountfield. “There isn’t really a cultural minority here. People come from all over and with different backgrounds.”
The college also takes a painstaking approach to analysis of contextual data such as progression rates to university and levels of disadvantage in different parts of the country, GCSE and A-level results and free school meals (FSM) eligibility of each applicant’s school and whether they are care leavers.
Perhaps the most contentious element of the Oxbridge admissions is the interview. A recent report from the Sutton Trust showed that six private schools and two state sixth-forms accounted for more Oxbridge offers than 3,000 other state schools and credited the availability of expert advice and preparation for that success.
Mansfield College’s senior admissions tutor, Lucinda Rumsey, recounts one applicant explaining that the only interview she had experienced before coming to Mansfield was at Greggs bakery. She got in and graduated with a 2:1. Rumsey believes the interview process is a powerful tool for equalising access.
“The important thing for selection is good pre-interview information, prior qualifications and a reference from a teacher who knows the student well and has seen them develop. Then we are trying to work out if candidates have aptitude for a particular subject and will thrive at it.
“The interview helps us to do some nuanced work around that. Tutors as subject specialists are in a good position to assess potential. Almost all the applicants we get are well-qualified, and we have to make fine distinctions.
“If candidates start out very well prepared by their school for interview, we try to see past that. If they have come from a school that rarely sends applicants to Oxford and have had no preparation, we want to see past that as well.
“Some candidates can be inflexible in their thinking if we take them off their comfortable ground. Interviews aren’t only about getting a right answer but engaging with what is asked and thinking through a problem that it is difficult and unfamiliar.”
The colleges’ access officer, Sara Harb, whose family moved to the UK from Jordan when she was five, recently graduated with a first in history after coming to Mansfield from an inner London comprehensive.
“There were people at my school saying, ‘people from this school don’t go to Oxford’ but as soon as I got here, I realised everyone seemed friendly and normal and not geniuses or very posh,” she explains.
“People from less well-performing schools often have to work really hard to get the grades and my school didn’t have the right interview prep but the tutors made me feel settled. I felt I was being challenged in an academic and friendly way rather than being set up to get caught out.”
For the team at Mansfield, their 90% access rate isn’t the end of the story. Rumsey says it is only when she reads the grant application forms for undergraduates in need, often to stay in college in the vacation period, that she grasps the full extent of their challenges.
“In these Covid-19 times we see the starkly different home circumstances of students. We have students who are alienated from families, students who have been carers, share rooms with siblings, don’t have a desk or wifi at home,” she adds.
“For us the next step is giving students access to equal chances after they leave, social capital as well as educational capital, so networks, grants for internships.”
Dan Hall: ‘For me it was “wow I am here, got to make the most of the experience”.’ Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian
Dan Hall, a third-year undergraduate in PPE from a state school in Manchester, agrees that different education backgrounds also show up after admission.
“For me it was ‘wow I am here, got to make the most of the experience’ rather than focus on career stuff. It is only later on that you realise you are behind the curve because they have been on a different path from the start.”
Both Rumsey and Mountfield believe the whole university is making a cultural shift, with a more sophisticated understanding of how state school admissions can be increased, to which Mansfield is contributing. Last year the number of successful state school applicants to Oxford was 69%, up from 56% five years ago.
Rumsey says there is a lot more pride in the state school access issue across the university, with conversations focusing more on the impact of privilege than disadvantage.
“There has been a presumption in the past that the latter group are riskier. But once you have made this shift, and seen the impact, you know that isn’t true.”
Publicație : The Guardian
Testing times for students: food banks open at universities
With maintenance loans now barely covering rent, many students are going hungry
Gemma Peacock has little money left over after she has paid her rent. She worked all summer to save up funds to supplement her university maintenance loan, but near the end of term she has a battle to make ends meet.
“It can be stressful,” says Peacock, a 20-year-old psychology student at Leeds Beckett University. “If I’m struggling I will walk every day instead of paying for the bus, and some days I have to walk for over two hours just to get to and from uni. I can afford basic food with my loan, but a lot of the time, I’m not eating a balanced diet.”
That’s why Peacock turned to the food bank that Leeds Beckett students’ union (LBSU) has set up to help struggling students. It has allowed her to stock up on basics like pasta and beans, freeing up more cash for fresh food.
Tucked away discreetly next door to the student bar, the food bank is a small shop space adorned with fairy lights and shelves stacked with pasta, rice, tins of soup, chocolate biscuits and tampons. To the side are crates of fresh vegetables.
Dotted around the shop are signs reading, poignantly, “Give or take”. The initiative is about encouraging students to donate, as much as it is about helping those in need, say the volunteers.
With the coronavirus outbreak making students even more financially vulnerable, the service has become more important than ever, and the student union has increased the opening hours and organised to drop food packages at students’ homes to ensure all are provided for, even if they’re self-isolating.
One of the main challenges is giving people the confidence to use it. “A lot of people are quite embarrassed to say they need help,” says Fozia Iqbal, one of the students who helps to run the service.
Some do come in regularly, while for others it is a stop-gap. “One girl who came in told me that she needed something because she was getting paid tomorrow, and she needed to eat tonight. I thought, ‘Without this she probably would have gone hungry’.”
Iqbal herself has only about £100 left each term after paying rent. Last year she juggled three part-time jobs while studying for her master’s in architecture, relying on the student union’s pay-as-you-feel soup kitchen on the run-up to payday.
Jake Butler, a student finance expert from Save the Student, a student money advice site, says its latest accommodation survey shows the average maintenance loan now doesn’t cover the average student rent.
According to the survey, published in February, the average student rent is now £126 a week (£6,552 a year), and £162 in London (£8,400 a year). The survey polled 2,168 students in December 2019 and January 2020.
Students receive on average £540 a month in their maintenance loans, according to Save the Student’s calculations. With the average student rent working out at £547.82 a month, many students have little or no money left for food and other essentials.
Unsurprisingly, 62% of students think the maintenance loan is not enough.
Union affairs officer Charlie Hind, left, and welfare and community officer Jess Carrier outside the pop-up food bank at Leeds Beckett University. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
Jess Carrier, the welfare and community officer at LBSU, says the system doesn’t work for many students: “Even though it is supposedly means-tested, not everyone is supported by their family.”
Peacock says: “My mum works seven days a week, so it’s not really fair of me to ask her because she’s struggling herself anyway. I don’t want to take her money off her.”
The fact that students are turning to food banks at university is worrying, says Butler. “Unless the government does something about the maintenance loan, we could see university food banks opening up in more locations. The system is long overdue for reform.”
Leeds Beckett isn’t the only university to start a food bank. Last year the University of Kent launched Stuff – a student food bank and freecycle scheme offering food and recycled homeware. Kent is planning to keep the service running throughout the coronavirus crisis.
At Northumbria University, the students’ union has had to close its food bank service supplying food parcels, but has redirected all provisions to help self-isolating students.
Staffordshire University student union has been running its Food Hub since 2014. In the last academic year the service was accessed 183 times, and numbers are set to increase in 2019-20, with more than 100 students having used the Food Hub so far. Like LBSU, they’re stocking up on provisions from wholesalers at the moment to ensure they have enough to keep students going.
The students’ union recognises that even while avoiding the term “food bank” students still face stigma, and has started using food vouchers that allow students to get food at retail outlets on site.
Connor Bayliss, president of Staffordshire University students’ union, says: “Sixty-five per cent of our students are local, many are mature or commute, and a high percentage of them are juggling caring or parental responsibilities and part-time work with their studies. Some students, such as those with children, are entitled to universal credit, and some have been “significantly affected” by the problems of its introduction, he says.
Stoke-on-Trent, where it is based, is ranked as the 14th most deprived local authority area in England. “In some cases, support can mean providing enough food for their families.”
Eve Crossan Jory, vice-president for welfare of the National Union of Students, says she is “appalled but unsurprised” at the increase in food banks. “Student maintenance funding is woefully inadequate, while rents are spiralling out of control. In one of the wealthiest societies, the fact that students and non-students alike need to access food banks is shameful.”
Publicație : The Guardian
Paces, grandes écoles postprépa: tous les concours sont reportés
Comme vous l’annonçait Le Figaro il y a quelques jours, tous les concours d’écoles de commerce et d’ingénieurs postprépa et la seconde partie du concours Paces vont être reportés à une date ultérieure.
C’est désormais officiel. Dans un communiqué de presse publié il y a quelques minutes, le ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur vient d’annoncer le report de tous les concours d’écoles de commerce et d’ingénieurs postprépa, mais aussi, la seconde partie des épreuves du concours Paces, venant confirmer une information publiée par Le Figaro il y a quelques jours.
«Les épreuves des examens et des concours nationaux qui n’ont pas pu se tenir ou qui doivent se tenir dans les prochaines semaines seront reprogrammées à une date ultérieure. Au regard de la complexité de l’organisation de ces épreuves, en tout état de cause, elles ne pourront avoir lieu avant la toute fin du mois de mai», précise le ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur.
Les concours prépas et la seconde partie du concours Paces reportés
Comme l’avait annoncé Le Figaro , ces reports concernent les écoles de commerce et les écoles d’ingénieurs post-prépa, mais aussi les étudiants en première année de médecine, qui doivent passer la seconde partie du concours Paces. «La réorganisation des concours nationaux sera mise en œuvre dans un cadre collectif associant les établissements d’enseignement supérieur et l’ensemble des ministères concernés», précise le ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur.
Pour assurer un suivi de l’organisation des différents concours et des examens nationaux le ministère annonce la création d’un comité opérationnel de pilotage présidé par Caroline Pascal, doyenne de l’Inspection générale de l’éducation, du sport et de la recherche. Toutes les conférences d’établissements (CPU, CGE, CDEFI, etc.), mais aussi, les banques de concours et les ministères impliqués seront représentés au sein de ce comité, qui aura pour mission de «construire, avec l’ensemble des acteurs engagés sur cette question, les modalités d’organisation et le calendrier général qui permettront la tenue de l’ensemble de ces concours et examens dans les meilleures conditions».
Les formats des concours pourraient changer
Le ministère précise également que les établissements «pourront réviser le format des concours, qu’il s’agisse du nombre d’épreuves, de leur format, ou de leur durée», afin de garantir que les étudiants ne «soient pas pénalisés».
D’autre part, le ministère précise également qu’à «titre exceptionnel pour l’année 2020 et après concertation avec les établissements, les épreuves écrites des concours postbac permettant d’accéder aux formations sélectives du premier cycle de l’enseignement supérieur seront remplacées par un examen des dossiers académiques des candidats». Cette nouvelle concerne donc toutes les formations sélectives, parmi lesquelles les IEP, écoles de commerce et d’ingénieurs post-bac, etc.
Plus d’informations à suivre sur notre site etudiant.lefigaro.fr et sur nos réseaux sociaux (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin)!
Publicație : Le Figaro
Cours à distance : l’enseignement supérieur a pris le virage
Confirmées ou totalement novices, universités et grandes écoles s’organisent pour garantir à leurs étudiants une continuité des cours et des examens.
Alors qu’il n’y était globalement pas prêt, l’enseignement supérieur a basculé de manière inédite dans le monde des cours à distance. Pour certains établissements, deux jours ont suffi à s’organiser et quelques-uns ont proposé dès le 16 mars une alternative pédagogique en ligne. Pour beaucoup d’autres, il a fallu interrompre les enseignements entre huit et quinze jours, comme à l’Edhec ou à Sciences Po Paris où les cours doivent reprendre, en ligne, dans le courant de la semaine.
La validation du second semestre ne sera pas remise en cause, ni la valeur des diplômes délivrés, avancent tous les établissements pour rassurer des étudiants déjà touchés au premier semestre par les grèves de décembre contre la réforme des retraites. Les examens nationaux prévus jusqu’au 5 avril seront reprogrammés et les concours d’entrée dans les grandes écoles, ainsi que ceux organisés au sein des universités pour accéder à la deuxième année des études de médecine, seront replanifiés à partir de la fin du mois de mai, a fait savoir, mardi 24 mars, le ministère de l’enseignement supérieur.
Le confinement met au jour une sorte de fracture numérique entre étudiants mais aussi entre enseignants. « Nos élèves sont renvoyés dans des zones souvent mal connectées, alerte une enseignante du lycée Val-de-Seine au Grand-Quevilly (Seine-Maritime), qui compte une centaine d’étudiants en BTS. La moitié de mes élèves ont des difficultés avec leur ordinateur et une connexion de mauvaise qualité chez eux. Ils bidouillent… Certains en viennent à taper leur rapport de stage sur leur téléphone portable ! »
« Le flux digital explose »
Dans les universités, c’est l’heure de vérité pour les vice-présidents chargés du numérique. En une semaine, l’université de Bourgogne (34 000 étudiants) est passée « de 15 000 connexions par jour à 40 000 », celle d’Angers (25 000 étudiants) a relevé « 25 000 connexions pour 9 000 à 10 000 utilisateurs distincts chaque jour depuis le début de la semaine ». A Caen, les activités de la plate-forme en ligne ont quadruplé. « Nos infrastructures sont en tension pour absorber le flux digital qui explose », explique Stéphane Amiard, vice-président chargé du numérique de l’université d’Angers.
Mis à part quelques cas isolés, l’improvisation prévaut. « L’université est le parent pauvre de l’EdTech [technologies numériques d’enseignement] pour des raisons budgétaires, idéologiques, de gouvernance, tranche Marie-Christine Levet, fondatrice du fonds d’investissement spécialisé Educapital. Les outils sont là mais leur mise en œuvre à grande échelle ne peut pas s’improviser. Alors chacun bricole dans son coin. »
Publicație : Le Monde
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