20 aprilie 2019
Studentii UAIC Iasi, premianti din nou la Simpozionul National al Studentilor Geologi si Geofizicieni
Patru studenti din cadrul Facultatii de Geografie si Geologie a Universitatii "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" (UAIC) din Iasi au fost premiati în cadrul Simpozionului National al Studentilor Geologi si Geofizicieni, editia a XX-a, care a avut loc în perioada 12 - 14 aprilie 2019, la Facultatea de Geologie si Geofizica a Universitatii din Bucuresti.
La eveniment au participat, cu postere si prezentari, noua studenti ai Departamentului de Geologie: Vladut Andriesei, Radu Balaur, Daniela Bujor, Antonia Hrimiuc, Marian Turea, Nicoleta Tutui, toti în anul IV la Inginerie geologica, Vlad Botez, anul II la Inginerie geologica, Alina Ciobanu si Maria-Evrika-Daim Cojocariu, anul I, respectiv anul II, master Geochimia mediului.
Premiile au fost obtinute la sectiunea Postere, dupa cum urmeaza: Premiul I - Tutui Nicoleta, Premiul al II-lea - Bujor Daniela si Premiul al III-lea - Radu Balaur (coordonati de prof. univ. dr. Crina Miclaus si asist. univ. dr. Anca Seserman). De asemenea, studenta Maria-Evrika-Daim Cojocariu (coordonata de prof. dr. Dumitru Bulgariu si lect dr. Dan Astefanei) a primit Diploma Speciala Master
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
Ministrul de Interne: Cei peste 500 de angajaţi de la Interne care au titlu de doctor vor trebui să respecte normele de integritate. Cât este sporul de doctorat
Carmen Dan, a anunţat vineri că a iniţiat modificarea ordinului de ministru pentru ca toţi cei peste 500 de angajaţi care deţin titlul de doctor şi primesc sporul de doctorat să îşi desfăşoare activitatea în domeniul pentru care deţin titlul.
„Nu cred că e normal ca un poliţist care lucrează în zona operativă şi are titlu de doctor în mecanică, de exemplu, să beneficieze de acel spor de doctorat”, a spus Carmen Dan, care a adăugat că lunar ministerul plăteşte 550.000 de lei spor de doctorate.
”În contextul demarării procesului de evaluare a lucrărilor de doctorat de la Academia de Poliţie, am considerat că impunerea unor norme de integritate faţă de angajaţii care primesc acest spor nu se poate limita numai la cei care şi-au obţinut doctoratele în Academia de Poliţie. În acest sens, am iniţiat modificarea ordinului de ministru prin care ne vom asigura că toţi cei peste 500 de angajaţi care deţin titlul de doctor şi care primesc sporul de doctorat respectă condiţia prevăzută de legea 153/2017 şi anume, că îşi desfăşoară activitatea în domeniul pentru care deţin respectivul titlu”, a declarat, vineri, Carmen Dan.
Potrivit acesteia, nu este corect ca un poliţist care lucrează în zona operativă şi are titlu de doctor în mecanică, să beneficieze de acel spor de doctorat plătit de MAI.
”Mi se pare corect ca instituţia să plătească sporul de doctorat dacă studiile respectivului angajat pot fi valorificate în munca pe care acesta o prestează pentru instituţie. Cu toţii ne dorim angajaţi calificaţi şi bine pregătiţi, iar această supra-calificare în domeniul de activitate înţelegem că trebuie retribuită. Angajatorul nu poate plăti, însă, faptul că un angajat îşi finalizează doctoratul într-un domeniu care nu are nicio legătură cu activitatea pe care el o prestează”, a mai spus Carmen Dan.
Ea a precizat că MAI plăteşte în prezent pentru sporurile de doctorate peste 550.000 de lei lunar.
În mai 2018, Carmen Dan a anunţat că vor fi verificate toate lucrările de doctorat eleborate la Academia de Poliţie în perioada 2007-2011, iar pentru început vor fi verificate aproximativ 80 de lucrări de diplomă care aparţin unor angajaţi ai ministerului care primesc indemnizaţia pentru studii de doctorat.
Ea a spus că nu pleacă de la premisa că aceste lucrări sunt plagiate, ci de la ideea că trebuie verificate pentru a înlătura suspiciunile apărute în spaţiul public.
La începutul lunii aprilie 2019, ministrul de Interne a anunţat că, în aproape şase luni, au fost evaluate şi s-au emis puncte de vedere pentru numai 6 lucrări de doctorat de la Academia de Poliţie, de aceea se impune o evaluare a modului de organizare a acestui proces.
În 25 martie, PresOne a scris că rectorul Academiei de Poliţie "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" din Bucureşti, Adrian Iacob, a plagiat aproape 70% din teza de doctorat, iar întreaga sa carieră academică se bazează pe titlul de ”doctor” obţinut în baza acesteia.
De asemenea, în 28 ianuarie 2019, PressOne relata că şeful DGA, chestorul Cătălin Ioniţă, a plagiat întreaga sa teză de doctorat, de la prima până la ultima pagină, la o lună după ce News.ro a scris că o parte dintr-un capitol al lucrării de doctorat a lui Cătălin Ioniţă, intitulată "Criminogeneza infracţiunilor cibernetice" şi susţinută în 2012, este identică unui fragment dintr-un articol cu titlul "Probleme juridice privind conţinuturile negative din Internet" apărut în 2003 într-o publicaţie juridică.
Potrivit Digi 24, Ioniţă a obţinut în instanţă plata retroactivă a sporului pentru titlul de doctor, deşi este acuzat că a plagiat teza de doctorat. Ioniţă s-a judecat doi ani cu Inspectoratul General de Poliţie. În septembrie 2018 a câştigat definitiv la Curtea de Apel Bucureşti. Instanţa a decis ca acestuia să îi fie plătiţi retroactiv banii pe perioada 2014 – 2016.
Publicație : Adevărul
University is about more than just getting a job
Teaching students the skills that enable them to be change makers in their industries should be the real goal, says Natalie Brett
If universities want to deliver the most valuable service and experience possible, they need to do more than simply prepare students for the workplace. Universities exist to encourage students to create positive change and disrupt industries – not just find work in them. Students should be offered the opportunity to think critically and independently and to question the status quo. Universities have a responsibility to help students consider their position and potential within society, both while in education and beyond.
How to achieve this in practice is obviously no easy task, but recognition of this fundamental aim can help galvanise and inform a university’s delivery of everything from building curricula, staff hiring, marketing to prospective students, events programmes and more.
One of the most effective methods is to ensure an even balance between the teaching of technical skills and the soft skills that are key to helping students ask bigger questions and find solutions to increasingly complex challenges: creativity, problem-solving, empathy, communication, teamwork and storytelling.
Deloitte Access Economics forecasts that soft skill-intensive occupations will account for two-thirds of all jobs by 2030, compared to half of all jobs in 2000. And the number of jobs in soft skill-intensive occupations is expected to grow at 2.5 times the rate of jobs in other occupations. Soft skills prepare students for a world in flux, responding with innovative ideas and solutions so that industries – and society – can change for the better.
Despite the misleading title, soft skills actually create resilience in industries that are very often anything but stable. A teaching methodology that promotes a non-specialised and open-minded approach, where students can collaborate across courses and disciplines, can provide a view of the bigger picture. In addition, it can allow students to better adapt to future challenges, such as automation and precarious work. The desirability of such skills is reflected in the hiring practices of companies such as Google; many of the top characteristics that it measures potential leaders against are in fact soft skills. In addition, a recent study by LinkedIn reveals that 57 per cent of senior leaders value soft skills as more important than hard skills, emphasising their importance to the labour market.
Universities also have the task of future gazing to predict the type of thinking and skills that will enable today’s students to become the game changers of tomorrow. At the London College of Communication, UAL, we respond to changes in technology and society and ensure our students are up to speed through a curriculum that is always evolving. We have seen exciting developments in new courses, from the recent launch of our new MA in virtual reality, to courses in data journalism or design for social innovation and sustainable futures. We liaise with industry when planning which emerging areas to focus on so students can learn these skills, and how we should teach them.
As well as equipping students with future-proof soft skills and enabling them to think critically, creatively and responsibly, it’s essential that universities ensure students can put these into practice while studying. Our students don’t just learn about being the leaders, innovators and disruptors of tomorrow, or theorise how they might make an impact. They get involved with paid industry briefs and live projects. Through these experiences businesses recognise the qualities that students bring and students are allowed to refine their skills in a way in which failure is part of the learning experience.
In the midst of uncertain political and economic times, it’s perhaps tempting for universities to focus only on delivering the essentials. But by doing so, wider opportunities could be missed. Helping students take their first steps into their chosen field is of course important, but even more impactful is the idea that they can be encouraged to develop the capacity to create change for the better rather than simply “find a job”. All of society benefits from innovative and disruptive change, not just students and universities.
Publicație : The Times
The sands must shift to flexible learning in coastal communities
Where you live should not limit your educational aspirations, says Ian Fribbance
As summer starts to sneak towards us, seaside towns will be preparing for the busy season when they’ll be full of tourists visiting the coast for their fix of fresh sea air and fish and chips. But this flurry of activity can disguise the fact that, sometimes, living in a coastal community can be an isolating experience and for some can even constrain their educational aspirations.
The regeneration of seaside towns has been under debate in Westminster, and one part of the resulting select committee on regenerating seaside towns and communities’ report scrutinises the education and skills of people living in coastal areas. Low educational attainment is a persistent problem in many seaside communities – and we know that this, in turn, restricts social mobility and stops people from reaching their potential. Worse, there has been a staggering 27 per cent decline in the number of people from coastal communities in England accessing higher education since the funding reforms of 2012, when tuition fees trebled to £9,000. This is a significant decline and cannot be ignored.
I believe that where you live should not limit the level of education that you can achieve.
Coastal communities face specific challenges, not least the fact that many are far from a traditional university. But distance should not be a barrier. The Open University has been the way that many people in these areas have gained a degree, through flexible, part-time distance learning.
Given that 90 per cent of that decline in numbers accessing higher education is directly attributable to the collapse in part-time study since the 2012 changes, it’s clear that a solution is needed urgently to allow those living in coastal towns to regenerate their own careers and employment skills.
Flexible learning, with a lot of study completed online and the possibility to work while studying, can play a crucial role in helping people from coastal communities upskill, particularly in more rural areas.
We know that some employers in seaside towns are already keen on upskilling. “Growing your own” staff is an effective way to develop talent and fill roles. The NHS is one employer that is already well established in working this way. In the Isle of Wight and Cornwall, for example, the OU works in partnership to deliver training programmes, which means that NHS Trusts can develop nurses from other categories of staff. In practice, this means that an employee such as a healthcare assistant with the drive and ambition to become a nurse, who may have family or property ties that prevent them moving, can remain in their home town and yet still get on a pathway to turn that hope into a reality. It means that people don’t have to leave to learn and can support wider regeneration efforts.
A practice where universities work in partnership with colleges and businesses in coastal communities could be a catalyst for regeneration in these areas. It would open access to local apprenticeships, develop entrepreneurial skills and give people the chance to pursue higher education. Creating a talent pipeline would serve local industries and entrepreneurs. We know that students who stay in place to study flexibly while working are more likely to remain in the local area and implement their new skills and knowledge. This brings rich rewards for local employers and the local economy.
I was glad to read that the select committee’s report agreed with my key point that we can never expect a bricks-and-mortar offering of higher education in every coastal town. But there is a real solution for bringing higher education to the coast. There is huge scope to develop flexible access via the online, part-time learning model so that people don’t need to leave to learn. Giving people aspiration through access is a key way to bring more vibrancy to these seaside areas – whatever the season.
Publicație : The Times
PhD student’s book examines ‘why black hair matters’
Emma Dabiri’s research uncovers the ways that our immediate reactions to people are still underpinned by the ideologies of ‘scientific racism’
Emma Dabiri describes herself as Irish, black, mixed race and Yoruba. She has an Irish mother and largely grew up in Ireland but spent her earliest years living among her father’s extended Nigerian family in Atlanta, Georgia. She is now working on a PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London “looking at the scholarship around being mixed race”.
Like many doctorates, Ms Dabiri’s generated a number of false starts. One was a section on dating preferences that fed into a much discussed Channel 4 documentary that she presented in 2017, Is Love Racist?, exploring how apps now allow people to filter out potential partners by race. Another forms the basis for her new book, Don’t Touch My Hair, about “why black hair matters”, shortly to be published by Allen Lane.
This draws extensively on Ms Dabiri’s childhood experiences in Ireland, when her typically West African hair made her feel “just like I was an exhibit. Strangers would break off conversations and come and touch my hair without asking and then discuss it with each other in disgusted fascination.” It wasn’t until she went to do a degree in African studies and history at SOAS University of London (where she is now a teaching fellow responsible for a class on culture in Africa) that she encountered very different attitudes among the privileged “white hippies” on the course: “My hair looked terrible…It was just tangled hair, just a mess. And they were like ‘Wow, that looks so cool’.”
Here we find one of the central political claims of Don’t Touch My Hair, Ms Dabiri explained to Times Higher Education: “The words that are routinely used to describe my black hair texture are ‘coarse’, ‘unruly’, ‘defiant’, ‘wild’, ‘rebellious’ – and the resonance between that language and the language of slavery and colonialism is [no coincidence]…The taxonomy of race has been globalised. It started during the period of scientific racism with white upper-class British men at the apex, and everyone else ranked with decreasing value until you get to Africans, who came just before monkeys…One of the markers used to identify black people as much lower down that hierarchy was hair. They didn’t have hair but wool – it was closer to the fur of animals.”
In their attitudes to hair, just as in their dating choices, Ms Dabiri went on, “people believe that they are autonomous actors and their decisions are based on their own personal choices, but if everybody was making autonomous choices they wouldn’t be making such similar choices…It’s what they’ve been told, almost programmed, to believe.”
Some of her own feelings became clear to Ms Dabiri at a recent material cultures conference at Goldsmiths focusing on hair. Other participants were happy to hand out samples of hair for inspection, but she “realised I was very reluctant to pass my hair round the room”, since she had internalised the views of her Trinidadian stepfather who “would warn me that your hair shouldn’t fall into a stranger’s hands, an idea which is very common throughout the Caribbean and Africa. It comes from the potency of hair and belief in the power of hair, that if people have access to your hair, they have some degree of control and can do some magic on you.”
Don’t Touch My Hair ranges widely across the African hairstyles that have survived from ancient Egypt until today, the escaped slaves who braided maps into their hair, the birth of black hair styling salons and products, and today’s Natural Hair Movement. Yet the styles most suitable for West African hair, which have been stigmatised and then stolen by white people, also illustrate a much wider history of stereotyping and cultural appropriation. Elvis was only the King of Pop, Ms Dabiri suggested, because of “the thirst that existed among the American public for the stars of black performance, which they wanted to see without the inconvenience of blackness”. She also urges looking again at the Yoruba, Ashanti and Mende cultures of West Africa for “solutions to undoing some of the contemporary issues we are grappling with”, for example around race, gender and environmental damage.
Nonetheless, she admitted that “ideas about race are incredibly potent and entrenched. They are not something that can just be legislated against…Nobody has worked out how to undo the potency of the spell that was the invention of race.”
Publicație : The Times
Ontario universities face dramatic shift to performance-based funding
Ford administration is blind to incompatibility of statistical metrics and quality teaching, academics warn
Ontario’s government is accelerating a performance-based funding system that many faculty fear could further hobble their institutions, three months after budget cuts were announced.
The proposal by premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario would subject some 60 per cent of all university funding to institutional performance on a yet undefined set of metrics.
The government has also proposed steps to prevent older staff from both drawing pensions and receiving regular salaries, in what many regard as an attempt to accelerate the use of younger, lower-paid instructors.
While largely untested in Canada, the idea of performance-based funding has been tried, in various forms, in most US states, with mixed to negative results. It replaces per-student government allocations with payments tied to outcomes such as graduation rates, job placement rates or student retention rates.
“Overwhelmingly,” the centre-left US thinktank Third Way said in a report last October, “the empirical research on performance funding suggests that in most current iterations at the state level, the policy fails to improve degree completions and graduation rates.”
Ontario faculty have little reason to believe the Ford administration will have any better luck, said Gyllian Phillips, president of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations.
“Real education is a deep slow transformative complex process, and it's very hard to put a number on that,” said Dr Phillips, associate professor of English studies at Nipissing University.
Employment-based standards also tend to reward fields of study that train students for relatively immediate career prospects rather than prepare them for career-long success, she warned. As an English professor in a relatively low-income part of the country, Dr Phillips found such a prospect especially threatening. “Actually having governments understand what universities do, and what they're for, and how education works – that's a pretty tall order for our government,” she said.
Larger institutions may feel less fearful. The University of Toronto issued a statement promising to help the Ford administration develop its metrics. “We welcome the opportunity to work with the government to identify the appropriate way to capture these results,” said the university's president, Meric S. Gertler.
Canadian higher education consultant Alex Usher wrote that “in principle it’s a good idea, to be applauded”, but that there were “some enormous devils in the details”. Although institutions would be judged mainly on common metrics, they would “not be held to a common standard on each metric”, but instead given “some kind of target based on past performance” on measures such as graduation rates or graduate salaries, he suggested.
A spokeswoman for Ontario's Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities said the 60 per cent of grant funding is only about 22 per cent of total operating revenue for universities and about 28 per cent for colleges. The emphasis on outcomes, said the spokeswoman, is meant to encourage the institutions “to be more efficient, specialised, and to focus on what they do best”.
Performance targets will be based on an institution’s historical data and its own benchmarks, meaning the institutions will be measured against themselves, not each other, she added.
Ricardo Tranjan, a senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said that while taxpayers have a right to expect accountability, they should not expect government officials to do a better job than education professionals in assessing educational quality.
And some of the most important skills gained at college – the ability of students to write well, think critically and develop new insights – are virtually impossible to measure with statistics, Dr Tranjan said.
Before Mr Ford took office in June 2018, Ontario had a Liberal-led government that took some tentative steps in the direction of performance-based funding. It created a set of “strategic mandate agreements” with universities that pushed each institution to develop some performance-based measures.
By the planned third phase of that process, around 2020, “we were expecting some kind of tie between metrics and funding” if the Liberals had remained in power, Dr Phillips said. “But absolutely nothing like what the Conservatives suggest,” she said, referring to Mr Ford’s plan to tie performance measures to 25 per cent of provincial funding for institutions in 2020, rising to 60 per cent in 2024.
Earlier this year, the Ford administration issued its annual budget, cutting funding to institutions via a 10 per cent reduction in tuition fees.
Publicație : The Times
« Cette génération de jeunes ressent la finitude du monde »
Sentiment de ne pas être en adéquation avec ses valeurs, désir d’éthique, tentation de prendre des chemins de vie alternatifs… l’inquiétude sur le climat se lie de plus en plus, chez les étudiants et les jeunes diplômés, à une remise en cause du système économique, explique la sociologue Cécile Van de Velde.
Des étudiants français manifestent contre le réchauffement climatique, à Paris, le 22 mars CHARLES PLATIAU / REUTERS
Depuis six mois, des marches pour le climat rassemblent des milliers de jeunes, à Paris et dans plusieurs pays d’Europe. Certains font grève tous les vendredis pour soutenir cette cause. Cécile Van de Velde, sociologue à l’université de Montréal, travaille sur la question de la colère et de la désobéissance civile dans la jeunesse. Elle analyse pour Le Monde cette mobilisation.
Quel regard portez-vous sur les mobilisations pour le climat, qui ont lieu depuis la fin de l’année 2018 ?
Ce qui frappe d’abord, c’est l’extrême jeunesse des participants : le cœur des manifestations est constitué d’adolescents, issus de milieux urbains et plutôt aisés. J’ai même croisé, à Montréal de nombreux enfants en famille, brandissant fièrement leur première pancarte. Même en France, où la tradition de mobilisation est plus marquée chez les étudiants, les plus jeunes se mobilisent aussi fortement. C’est la première prise de parole de la « génération d’après », et qui en annonce d’autres.
Nés au tournant des années 2000, ces jeunes ont connu la jonction des crises économiques et environnementales, et portent un rapport au temps particulier : ils ressentent fortement la finitude du monde. Ils ont grandi dans une forme d’incertitude radicale. J’ai pu voir monter et se diffuser, au fil de mes recherches sur la colère sociale, ce sentiment d’urgence vis-à-vis des questions écologiques. En 2012, la colère des jeunes diplômés était principalement structurée par les thématiques sociales et économiques. Aujourd’hui, le malaise est plus existentiel, plus global. Il porte davantage sur la question de la marche du monde et de l’humanité menacée.
Cela va de pair avec un rapport plus concret et radical au politique : ces jeunes générations ont davantage confiance en leurs capacités de changement social que leurs aînés, notamment parce qu’ils ne considèrent pas n’avoir plus rien à attendre. En 1968, Margaret Mead, dans son ouvrage Le Fossé des générations, annonçait une inversion de la transmission entre générations : au lieu d’être descendante – des parents vers les enfants –, cette transmission pouvait devenir ascendante. C’est cette forme d’inversion générationnelle qui est à l’œuvre aujourd’hui sur les questions climatiques et environnementales.
Comment comprendre cette colère envers la classe politique et le monde économique ?
C’est un point intéressant : on n’y retrouve pas, ou peu, de jeunes issus de territoires périphériques ou de jeunes issus des milieux plus populaires. C’est une colère des « inclus », ce qui ne veut pas dire pour autant que les autres ne sont pas sensibles à ces questionnements, mais leur colère se structure davantage sur l’injustice sociale. Dans le mouvement sur le climat, c’est le thème de l’injustice générationnelle qui domine, et on retrouve, dans nombre de slogans, la dénonciation d’un passé qui grève le futur, le refus d’un héritage marqué à la fois par la dette et le doute. Il ne faut pas opposer par exemple le mouvement des « gilets jaunes » et ce mouvement sur le climat : même s’ils diffèrent fortement, ce sont deux formes de critique systémique, l’une marquée par des questions de survie individuelle et de justice sociale, et l’autre de survie collective et de justice générationnelle.
On y retrouve, comme dans toutes les colères sociales et politiques d’aujourd’hui, les mêmes ferments. A savoir un sentiment d’impuissance, avec cette impression de ne pas pouvoir avoir suffisamment de prise sur son destin, qu’il soit individuel ou collectif. Et un sentiment de mépris ressenti face à l’action ou l’inaction politique. Il faut noter que le mouvement ne cible pas la génération aînée dans son ensemble, mais plutôt celle qui se cache derrière « le système » : ce qui est dénoncé, au fond, c’est le cynisme du monde de la finance et de la politique, ainsi que leur complicité supposée. On voit d’ailleurs dans les enquêtes internationales sur les valeurs que la conscience environnementale et la demande d’éthique politique sont deux revendications qui distinguent fortement les jeunes générations montantes. Non pas que ces revendications n’existent pas chez les autres, mais elles sont portées à l’extrême par ces jeunes générations. Il est symptomatique que ce mouvement ait comme égérie une jeune adolescente, Greta Thunberg, considérée comme incorruptible et non affiliée ; elle porte en elle-même cette vision « pure » du politique.
Certains jeunes diplômés parlent de « dissonance cognitive » lorsqu’ils travaillent pour des entreprises avec lesquelles ils se sentent en contradiction morale… Comment analysez-vous cette expression particulière ?
Dans les parcours, ces tensions entre « l’être » et « le système » sont de plus en plus exprimées. Pour certains, elles sont vécues comme un réel déchirement. Au niveau individuel, la question posée est d’abord d’ordre éthique : s’ajuster au marché du travail, d’accord, mais jusqu’où ? Par nécessité, la plupart des jeunes diplômés acceptent de renoncer à certaines valeurs pour rester dans la course, mais ils peuvent développer alors un sentiment majeur de désajustement. Je les appelle les « loyaux critiques » : ils jouent le jeu, mais portent une critique radicale du système, depuis l’intérieur. De plus en plus de diplômés refusent actuellement de renoncer à certaines valeurs et s’engagent vers des chemins alternatifs, que ce soit à l’intérieur même du système – monter son entreprise écologique par exemple –, ou à l’extérieur – quitter le marché du travail et vivre de la débrouille. Mais il faut bien sûr disposer de quelques filets de sécurité pour pouvoir franchir ce pas. Même s’ils restent minoritaires, ces parcours sont révélateurs de la dynamique actuelle du changement social, qui passe de plus en plus par les comportements sociaux eux-mêmes. Plus encore que la consommation quotidienne, c’est le choix de vie lui-même qui devient codé comme un acte de résistance politique.
Publicație : Le Monde
Suppression de l’ENA : la mixité sociale au cœur des débats
Les CSP supérieures y sont surreprésentées, à l’inverse des enfants d’ouvriers ou d’employés. Comment expliquer que l’école, créée dans un esprit de démocratisation de l’accès à la haute fonction publique, en arrive à de tels écarts ?
Le débat fait rage entre pourfendeurs et défenseurs de l’Ecole nationale d’administration (ENA), depuis que sa suppression est apparue dans le bouquet de mesures que devait annoncer Emmanuel Macron pour clôturer le grand débat, lundi 15 avril – annonces reportées en raison de l’incendie de Notre-Dame de Paris.
Mais la prestigieuse institution, qui sélectionne et forme l’élite administrative et politique française depuis 1945, s’est refusée à entrer dans l’arène, se gardant de toute réaction officielle. Tout juste s’est-elle fendue, sur Twitter, d’une série de messages avec un seul et même objet : son ouverture sociale.
« Dans la promotion actuelle de l’ENA, 26 % d’élèves boursiers de l’enseignement supérieur, 14 % d’élèves petits-enfants d’ouvriers, 9 % petits-enfants d’agriculteur, 12 % petits-enfants d’artisan ou commerçant, 12 % petits-enfants d’employé », peut-on lire notamment dans l’un de ces Tweet.
« Il y a un problème »
Ce sont aussi plusieurs témoignages d’énarques venant de milieux défavorisés que l’école a mis en avant. « Quand on en est à se justifier sur plusieurs générations et à parler des petits-enfants, c’est quand même qu’il y a un problème », a réagi, dans la foulée, le député La République en marche (LRM) du Val-d’Oise Aurélien Taché, qui s’est dit favorable à la disparition de l’école.
Il faut dire que la faible mixité sociale de l’établissement est un constat établi de longue date : les catégories socioprofessionnelles supérieures y sont surreprésentées, à l’inverse des enfants d’ouvriers ou d’employés.
« Alors qu’en moyenne, en 2013, 32 % des hommes exerçant un emploi en France étaient ouvriers, sur l’ensemble de notre échantillon, seuls 4,4 % des élèves de l’ENA avaient un père exerçant cette profession », peut-on lire dans un article de Fabrice Larat, directeur du Centre d’expertise et de recherche administrative à l’ENA, publié en 2015 ; 52,6 % ont un père cadre ou enseignant, 16,2 % d’une profession libérale ou intellectuelle.
« Si on compare la part respective des différentes CSP chez les candidats et chez celles des admis, poursuit le responsable, il en ressort d’un point de vue statistique que la probabilité pour un individu issu d’une classe supérieure d’être admis à l’ENA est en moyenne de 1/10, alors qu’elle est de 1/18 pour les classes populaires. »
Publicație : Le Monde
Post razzisti del professore a Venezia, Bussetti invia gli ispettori: "Non si sale in cattedra per seminare odio"
Il post sui social del ministro dopo che le frasi del docente erano state segnalate dai genitori degli studenti
Il ministro dell'Istruzione Marco Bussetti ha sollecitato una relazione e un'ispezione sul caso suscitato da alcuni post su Facebook di un professore di un istituto alberghiero di Venezia. "Insegnare è un lavoro bellissimo, una missione da vivere tutti i giorni dando il meglio di sé per educare i nostri giovani. Sono orgoglioso del quotidiano lavoro svolto da centinaia di migliaia di docenti di ruolo e precari nelle scuole italiane. Ma se qualcuno sale in cattedra per seminare odio e falsità evidentemente non si trova nel posto giusto. E va allontanato dalla scuola. Un concorso vinto non dà il lasciapassare per delirare e offendere", scrive il ministro sulla sua pagina Facebook.
Sulla vicenda del docente veneziano Sebastiano Sartori denunciato per aver pubblicato, sempre su Facebook, insulti razzisti e xenofobi Bussetti scrive ancora: "Leggo sugli organi di stampa di atteggiamenti e dichiarazioni inqualificabili da parte di un insegnante in Veneto che, se confermati, rappresenterebbero un fatto gravissimo, un comportamento generale non conciliabile con il ruolo di docente. Non è possibile che un insegnante si esprima in questi termini - sottolinea Bussetti -. Per questo ho sollecitato una relazione e un'ispezione: voglio verificare cosa sia realmente accaduto".
"Una volta accertati i fatti, assumeremo tutte le iniziative e le misure, anche sanzionatorie, necessarie a tutelare gli alunni e tutti i docenti che ogni giorno, anche a costo di enormi sacrifici, permettono alla scuola italiana di svolgere il suo fondamentale ruolo per i nostri giovani", conclude il ministro.
Publicație : La Repubblica
22 aprilie 2019
Conferinta internationala "Perspectives in Humanities and Social Sciences" - "Interdisciplinaritatea, un termen-umbrela?", la Universitatea "Cuza" din Iasi
Institutul de Cercetari Interdisciplinare, Departamentul Stiinte Socio-Umane, Centrul PHSS de integrare interdisciplinara si transfer de cunostinte în Stiintele umaniste din cadrul Universitatii "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" (UAIC) din Iasi organizeaza, în perioada 17-18 mai 2019, a VI-a editie a conferintei internationale "Perspectives in Humanities and Social Sciences" - "Interdisciplinaritatea, un termen-umbrela?".
"Cadrul general si obiective: Nu exista o teorie unitara a interdisciplinaritatii, dar traversam în mod cert o epoca postdisciplinara, în care inter-, multi-, trans-disciplinaritatea a devenit deja o meta-disciplina, un nou idiom în care toti acesti compusi sunt partial intersanjabili. Care este astazi vocabularul conceptual al interdisciplinaritatii? Care sunt metodologiile aplicative? Cum recunoastem potentialele punctele de întâlnire între doua discipline diferite? Cum pot fi aceste întâlniri provocate? Cum influenteaza imperativul interdisciplinaritatii politicile cercetarii si cultura academica? Pentru a raspunde acestor întrebari, propunerile pentru editia a VI-a a conferintei PHSS se vor încadra în urmatoarele patru arii tematice: vocabular conceptual, epistemologii si metodologii aplicative, interferente, forme de colaborare. Sunt asteptate atât abordari teoretice, cât si studii de caz si explorari cu potential inter- si transdisciplinar", au transmis organizatorii.
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
O importanta biblioteca a Universitatii "Cuza" din Iasi intra in MODERNIZARE
Începând cu data de 8 mai 2019, filiala de Psihopedagogie, Educatie Fizica si Sport a Bibliotecii Central Universitare (BCU) "Mihai Eminescu" a Universitatii "Alexandru Iona Cuza" (UAIC) din Iasi va fi închisa pentru modernizare! Împrumutul de publicatii pentru acasa si pentru Sala de Lectura s-a putut face doar pâna la data de 19 aprilie 2019.
Cititorii care au publicatii împrumutate de la filiala noastra sunt rugati sa le restituie pâna la data de 3 mai 2019 (inclusiv). Între 22-25 aprilie si 2-8 mai 2019, biblioteca va fi deschisa în intervalul 8:00 - 14:30. Accesul la biblioteca se face pe baza permisului de intrare în BCU, care este valabil în sediul central si în toate filialele.
Biblioteca de Psihopedagogie, Educatie Fizica si Sport este o biblioteca specializata, filiala a Bibliotecii Centrale Universitare "M. Eminescu" Iasi. Biblioteca s-a înfiintat în anul 1965, acumulând fondurile Bibliotecii Seminarului Pedagogic (1999) si a Seminariilor de Psihologie si Pedagogie (1908). Biblioteca dispune de doua sali de lectura cu 100 de locuri.
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
Lansare proiect – Consolidarea, reabilitarea, modernizarea si echiparea cladirii corpului E a Universitatii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iasi
Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iasi, in calitate de beneficiar, anunta inceperea implementarii proiectului cu titlul Consolidarea, reabilitarea, modernizarea si echiparea cladirii corpului E a Universitatii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iasi in cadrul Programului Operational Regional (POR) 2014-2020, Axa prioritara 10: Imbunatatirea infrastructurii educationale, co-finantat prin Fondul European de Dezvoltare Regionala, in baza contractului de finantare incheiat cu Ministerul Dezvoltarii Regionale si Administratiei Publice si Agentia pentru Dezvoltare Regionala Nord-Est, cod MySMIS 120435.
Valoarea totala a proiectului este de 17.478.080,59 lei, din care asistenta financiara nerambursabila este de 17.082.336,84 lei.
Obiectivul general al proiectului consta in cresterea standardelor de calitate si a relevantei ofertei educationale a Universitatii "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" din Iasi in relatie cu piata fortei de munca si sectoarele economice competitive, prin imbunatatirea infrastructurii educationale ca rezultat al consolidarii, reabilitarii, modernizarii si dotarii cladirii corpului E.
Proiectul urmareste cresterea calitativa si cantitativa a spatiului didactic al Universitatii cu 1806.27 mp, respectiv cu 13 sali de curs si seminar, 1 amfiteatru, 5 spatii de birouri pentru cadrele didactice, precum si imbunatatirea conditiilor de studiu si de cercetare la Universitatea "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" din Iasi.
Locul implementarii proiectului este: Municipiul Iasi, Strada Pacurari, nr. 9, 700511, Jud. Iasi. Perioada de implementare a proiectului este de 46 luni, incepand cu data de 01.09.2017 pana la 30.06.2021.
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
Fund or fail: the fear of a doctoral student
The new rules of academia – where researchers are valued by the funding dollars that they generate – inhibit minority background scholars and threaten universities’ accountability, says Kahlil C. DuPerry
The longstanding “publish or perish” paradigm of academia seems to be dying. In its place, institutions appear to be opting for a new, market-based strategy of advancement through the ranks. No longer will the quality of my work, or even the quantity, directly dictate success. Rather, the extent to which researchers can generate external funding will.
This shift in values reflects a change from evaluating the importance of a researcher’s work based on its novelty or intellectual breadth, to judging its worth in the capitalist free market. The implicit message in this shift is that research has little to no worth unless someone is willing to, and able to, pay for it. It’s especially problematic for researchers from ethnic minority backgrounds or with marginalised identities.
As a doctoral student planning to seek a tenure track position, this change concerns me. The impression often given is that our research skills, and other academic related abilities (such as teaching), will be the measure by which we are judged.
However, if you pay attention to the CVs of early to mid-career academics who are seeking full academic positions, the list of publications and presentations that they have produced has been usurped in order by the funding that their research has received, placing income over academic production.
Formerly, researchers and academic commentators have decried the idea of “publish or perish” because they believed that, among other things, it over-valued the quantity of work over the quality, created bias within results and reduced the rigour of peer review.
But this paradigm shift brings about other sinister possibilities, such as granting or financial agencies censoring research or researchers influencing outcomes to secure dollars.
Most journals require authors to disclose potential conflicts of interest and funding sources so that readers may infer whether funding sources may have influenced research outcomes. But at the same time, with public research funding decreasing, researchers are virtually forced to seek backing from external sources that have agendas.
As a young, black, hopeful academic this new method of evaluation is especially worrying. It is a poorly kept secret that researchers of colour do more work for less credit than their white counterparts.
Their work often consists of formal and informal mentorship of students of colour, as well as supporting any diversity and inclusion offices or initiatives set up by universities. Researchers with other marginalised identities often function in similar roles with few formal rewards for doing so. With these added responsibilities, these researchers have less time to seek and secure funds from the limited number of granting agencies and other funding sources.
Moreover, my research interests lay in exploring various social identities and the strengths and oppression that come with them. When one considers that many of the available funding dollars are held by systems that are implicated in, or have benefited from, the systemic oppression called out by such research, a creative imagination is not necessary to see how funds might be harder to come by.
Of course, there are many ways to work around these issues. More politically liberal and expansive funding sources exist, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Civil Liberties Union or other national and local organisations interested in supporting social justice work.
These funding sources could be more actively pursued and perhaps even increased. Meanwhile, university programmes could also train doctoral students on how to find and receive funding in the same way they teach us about publishing, providing the skills necessary to be successful in this new paradigm.
However, these workarounds are, by definition, not addressing the problem itself; they are adjustments to an unjust system.
As a student, I don’t know what a real solution could look like, or if it is even possible considering academia will still be influenced by external capitalistic pushes for profits. I hope at least that the leaders within the institution – the president, professors and administrators – are taking time to reflect on the changing landscape and consider what it will mean for their own academic goals as well as those of the next generation.
The shift to looking at capital as the determiner of worthwhile research puts the advancement of knowledge at risk, especially the work on social justice when it conflicts with economic gains. If academia is to continue to hold systems, including itself, accountable, money cannot – and should not – be the driver.
Publicație : The Times
Georgetown slavery reparations plan spotlights institutions’ failings
Student action shows US colleges far from accepting their slavery-related debts
A bid by Georgetown University students to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves sold by their institution is threatening hard ethical assessments across much of US higher education, according to some experts.
The students’ proposal instead would create a new $27.20 (£20.83) per-semester student fee to benefit thousands of descendants of the 272 slaves who were sold in 1838 – for about $3.3 million in today’s monetary value – to save Georgetown from a financial crisis.
Georgetown’s leadership appears unsure how to proceed. The president of the nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit university, John J. DeGioia, issued a 700-word response promising to take the student request “very seriously” while outlining a long process of evaluation.
The 11 April undergraduate referendum attracted a record 57 per cent turnout, with 66 per cent endorsing the new fee, said Richard J. Cellini, a Georgetown alumnus who led efforts to identify the 272 slaves and nearly 8,300 of their direct descendants.
Yet, said Mr Cellini, the chief executive officer of Briefcase Analytics, Dr DeGioia appears to be warning that Georgetown’s governing board of directors might never even consider the idea.
Georgetown “definitively owes its continued existence to the sale of enslaved human beings”, said Edward E. Baptist, a Georgetown alumnus and professor of history at Cornell University. His book, The Half Has Never Been Told, describes the profitability and cruelty of slavery as booming in the early 1800s when Southern cotton farming exploded just as slave imports from Africa were banned.
The resulting massive economic boost was central to the US’ emergence as a world power, he explained.
Virtually all progress in convincing US universities to own up to their slavery-related responsibilities is attributable to student activism, said Ana Lucia Araujo, a professor of history at Howard University.
Dr Baptist said that he is proud of the Georgetown student vote, but does not feel that students should bear the primary cost. “Certainly the institution itself owes a much bigger debt than any of those individual students,” he said.
As a next step, said William A. Darity, a professor of public policy at Duke University, the students might consider pushing Georgetown to lead a group of colleges in pushing Congress for a much broader set of reparations for black Americans.
Far beyond the period of slavery, Dr Darity said, societal debts to black Americans continue to accrue in such forms as “persistent labour market discrimination and the appalling racial wealth gap”.
Georgetown – with limited actions to date that include admitting as students a handful of descendants of the 272 slaves – is still moving faster than many other US universities that directly benefited from slavery.
Colleges throughout the Eastern US, said Davarian L. Baldwin, a professor of American studies at Trinity College in Hartford, “were literally built by the slave economic system – both North and South”.
One of the worst cases of avoidance, Dr Baptist said, may be the University of Georgia, which battled students and alumni seeking recognition for about 100 slaves found buried beneath a campus building under renovation in 2015.
Such denials by US universities of the negative effects of their operations go well into the present day, said Marcia Chatelain, an associate professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown. They include campuses expanding into communities in ways that force out local residents, she said.
As with almost all US property owners, US colleges could see their moral accountability extend into their use of indigenous lands, Dr Baldwin said. Many institutions avoid acknowledgements concerning black or native populations, he said, “because of the fear that it will be followed by stronger economic demands for reparations”.
Publicație : The Times
Tirocinio per il sostegno, caos per i test irregolari
Tre prove preliminari per i Tfa sospese alle Università della Calabria, della Basilicata e di Bari: domande non stampate, quesiti scambiati. Segnalazioni di irregolarità da molti atenei: "C'è chi ascoltava le risposte all'auricolare, chi correggeva in gruppo". I sindacati attaccano il ministro dell'Istruzione: "Annulli il concorso e aumenti i posti"
ROMA - I primi test-concorsi organizzati dal ministero di Marco Bussetti sono stati un disastro. Per la prova selettiva del Tfa sostegno, il Tirocinio formativo attivo lungo un anno e organizzato dalle singole università il 15 e 16 aprile scorsi, sono state tre le prove sospese e molte le contestazioni. Il preliminare del Tfa, dedicato agli aspiranti docenti che vogliono dedicarsi alle disabilità a scuola, riguardava il sostegno per l'infanzia, la primaria, le scuole medie e le superiori. Decine di migliaia i candidati per i primi 14.224 posti disponibili (in tre anni i vincitori saranno quarantamila).
L'Università della Calabria (Arcavacata, Rende), l'Università della Basilicata (Potenza) e l'Università di Bari hanno dovuto sospendere e aggiornare tre prove. Gravi errori nella somministrazione dei test. Problemi, di vario genere, ci sono stati in atenei lombardi, emiliani, marchigiani, campani. Tra le contestazioni, che in alcuni casi si stanno trasformando in ricorsi ai tribunali amministrativi, spiccano le domande non previste dall'allegato C del Decreto ministeriale - sulle cui indicazioni si sono preparati gli aspiranti docenti di sostegno -. In alcune aule le prove non sono proprio arrivate, o sono state consegnate quelle di un ciclo scolastico diverso. I regolamenti sono stati applicati in modo differente a seconda dell'università coinvolta: commissioni hanno permesso la correzione delle risposte barrate, altri no. In alcune aule i codici a barre sono stati assegnati invece che sorteggiati, in molti casi le prove sono state svolte in gruppo. In tutti i casi, scarsi controlli e disorganizzazione degli atenei ospitanti.
Un test preselettivo a pagamento - fino a 200 euro per ogni candidato - che deve condurre a corsi di specializzazione oggettivamente cari, da 2.500 a 3.800 euro - non ha trovato uno svolgimento omogeneo nel Paese.
Atenei disorganizzati, quiz subappaltati
In tre casi non si è riusciti ad avviare la prova. L'Università della Calabria (2.800 euro il costo per l'intero Tfa) ha annullato il test per la scuola superiore, quaranta minuti dopo l'inizio, per "alcuni errori tecnici". All'apertura dei plichi alcuni questionari sono risultati incompleti: le domande non erano state stampate. Il rettore Gino Mirocle Crisci ha addossato la colpa all'organizzazione (privata) che ha gestito specificamente i test: "Siamo completamente estranei", ha scritto in una nota, "l'ateneo fornisce solo la sede per il concorso, la vigilanza e la distribuzione delle buste. Il Miur, che ha indetto il concorso, ha appaltato le procedure a una ditta esterna, che si è fatta carico di tutte le procedure". Millesettecento candidati a casa e la prova selettiva per i presenti sarà ripetuta il 27 aprile.
A Potenza 340 candidati hanno dovuto interrompere il test perché in venticinque casi le prove della secondaria di secondo grado (superiori, quindi) erano state scambiate con quelle della secondaria di primo grado (medie). Anche qui l'ateneo si è giustificato: "E' stato un mero errore materiale della ditta incaricata". La nuova prova non è stata ancora fissata.
A Bari (2.800 euro il costo dell'intero Tfa) è stato annullato il test per la primaria, 658 presenti. I quesiti erano stati affidati al Consorzio interuniversitario Cineca: i plichi con le domande erano, tuttavia, vuoti. Non c'è ancora comunicazione sulla preselettiva di recupero.
Disagi sono stati registrati all'Università del Salento e alla Kore di Enna. E all'Università di Foggia, dove il test è stato costruito da un'azienda privata, l'Ente Fiera ha ospitato tremila candidati per i 600 posti disponibili nei quattro cicli. Per la scuola superiore le domande, hanno raccontato i candidati, "erano fuori tema": la pentola a pressione di Papin, la pila di Volta, la vita di Nelson Mandela, l'auto ibrida plug-in, la leggenda di Frankestein e ancora gli anni bisestili, le probabilità di ottenere una somma di 14 dal lancio di due dadi (da sei numeri l'uno). "Mesi di studio su riforme, normative, pedagogia, psicologia, leggi, commi e non ci siamo trovati nulla di tutto questo nei quesiti proposti, nulla che fosse inizialmente previsto dal bando". Controlli superficiali, si è poi detto: candidati al bagno durante la prova, cellulari che squillavano nonostante la richiesta di ritiro dei dispositivi elettronici.
Candidate da Urbino: "L'aula sembrava uno stadio"
Queste due testimonianze, dall'Università di Urbino, sono state ottenute dai Docenti per i diritti dei lavoratori (Anndl). Descrivono questo clima e questa attenzione: "Non c'è stato alcun controllo del documento d'identità. Abbiamo portato avanti la prova ammassati, spalla a spalla: chi aveva con sé gli appunti, chi i libri, i cellulari accesi sono rimasti così per tutto il tempo del test. A inizio prova abbiamo sentito distintamente una ragazza leggere le domande a voce alta, come per dettarle a chi stava dall'altra parte. Aveva l'auricolare alle orecchie". E poi: "Eravamo dentro uno stadio con collaborazioni a gruppi, impossibile concentrarsi. Chi ha studiato sul serio, si sente beffato".
Il sindacato Snals Confsal ha preso le irregolarità-disfunzioni al balzo per chiedere "un nuovo ciclo di concorsi", immediato, "poiché il contingente di specializzati dell'attuale tornata non sarà sufficiente a coprire le esigenze di organico". I posti previsti, appunto, sono 14.224. La procedura di selezione del nuovo ciclo, ha detto il segretario generale Elvira Serafini, "dovrà essere affidata al ministero dell'istruzione con una prova nazionale unica lasciando alle università esclusivamente l'espletamento dei corsi".
Anche la Flc Cgil di Foggia ha chiesto all'ateneo di annullare le prove, ma la larghezza del perimetro degli errori chiama direttamente in causa il Miur, che ha scelto di non vigilare sul concorso per il sostegno. Usb scuola scrive: "È inaccettabile continuare a sopportare i costi della disorganizzazione e dell'incuria di un ministero che da anni non bandisce un corso abilitante e non si fa carico della formazione dei suoi docenti". Anief attacca le università: "Con le somme chieste ai candidati solo per tentare l'accesso ai corsi, si doveva e poteva predisporre una preselezione di primo livello, con supporti tecnologici d'avanguardia".
C'è chi, ora, deve rifare il test - chiedendo permessi di lavoro, in alcuni casi pagando biglietti per bus e treni -, chi già conosce la data del recupero e chi no. C'è chi sa se è stato promosso e chi quando darà gli scritti (pochi, quest'ultimi). La macchina per creare insegnanti di sostegno procede pessimamente.
Publicație : La Repubblica
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