Au început înscrierile la Scolile de Vara ale UAIC Iasi, prin proiectul ROSE
Universitatea "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" (UAIC) din Iasi va desfasura, în luna iulie a anului 2019, noua Programe de vara finantate din Proiectul privind Învatamântul Secundar (ROSE) de catre Banca Internationala de Reconstructie si Dezvoltare (Banca Mondiala), care au ca scop desfasurarea de cursuri si alte activitati relevante destinate elevilor de liceu, cu precadere celor dezavantajati social, pentru încurajarea finalizarii de catre acestia a studiilor liceale si facilitarea continuarii educatiei la nivel tertiar.
Lista Scolilor de Vara implementate de UAIC sunt: "Vreau sa fiu student la Litere!" - Scoala de Vara pentru elevi - LiteratIS, (Facultatea de Litere), 7-21 iulie, "Vacanta juridica DREPT în Iasi - Drept în Iasi!" (Facultatea de Drept), 30 iunie-14 iulie, "Scoala de Vara pentru Economisti - EconomIS", (Facultatea de Economie si Administrarea Afacerilor), 7-21 iulie, "Descoperim Pamântul spre culmile cunoasterii! GEO-GEO" (Facultatea de Geografie si Geologie), 30 iunie-14 iulie, "Experienta universitara timpurie pentru elevii aflati în situatii de risc: program-punte în domeniile Educatie Fizica si Sport si Teologie Romano Catolica - TEOSPOR" (Facultatile de Educatie Fizica si Sport si Teologie Romano-Catolica), 7-21 iulie, Scoala de Vara pentru Stiinte: "Program punte pentru tranzitia de la liceu la universitate - Vara Stiintelor" (Facultatile de Biologie si Chimie), 7-21 iulie, "Scoala de Vara în domeniul Teologiei Ortodoxe si Istoriei pentru îmbunatatirea oportunitatilor de participare la învatamântul universitar a elevilor cu risc de abandon - TEOIST" (Facultatile de Teologie Ortodoxa si Istorie), 7-21 iulie, "De-ale viitorului: informatica si matematica - INFORMAT" (Facultatile de Informatica si Matematica), 7-21 iulie, "Hai la facultate! Sa descoperim împreuna vara universitara la Cuza! VINOlaUAIC!" (Facultatile de Filosofie si Stiinte Social-Politice si Psihologie si Stiinte ale Educatiei) - 7-21 iulie.
Publicație :Bună Ziua Iași
EUROINVENT 2019: Patru medalii de aur, patru de argint si diplome de excelenta pentru carti publicate de Editura UAIC
80 de carti publicate la Editura Universitatii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iasi au fost premiate la cea de a XI-a editie a Salonul de carte tehnico-stiintifica, artistica si literara asociat Expozitiei Europene a Creativitatii si Inovarii EUROINVENT 2019. Evenimentul s-a desfasurat in perioada 16-18 mai, la Palatul Culturii din Iasi, sub Inaltul Patronaj al Ministerului Cercetarii si Inovarii, cu sprijinul Universitatii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iasi, al Universitatii Tehnice „Gheorghe Asachi” si al Universitatii de Medicina si Farmacie „Gr. T. Popa” din Iasi.
Astfel, vineri, 17 mai 2018, in cadrul festivitatatii de premiere de la Palatul Culturii, Editura Universitatii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iasi a primit din partea juriului Salonului de carte tehnico-stiintifica, artistica si literara, condus de prof.univ.dr. Constantin Luca, patru medalii de aur, patru de argint si diplome de excelenta pentru cartile publicate.
Medalii de Aur:
- Restituiri etnologice, de Petru Caraman, editie ingrijita de Ion H. Ciubotaru;
• GIS (Geographic Information System), fotogrametrie si geofizica in arheologie Investigatii non-invazive in asezari Cucuteni din Romania, de Andrei Asandulesei;
• Monografia orasului Targu Frumos, de Dumitru Boghian, Sergiu-Constantin Enea, Marius Chelcu, Ionut Minea (autori), Ion Alexa-Anghelus, Dan Fripis, Manuel Stanescu (colaboratori);
• Implicarea ceramicilor in potabilizarea apelor subterane si de suprafata, de Ion Sandu (coordonator), Monica-Anca Cretu, Ioan Gabriel Sandu, Viorica Vasilache, Andrei Victor Sandu, Galina Marusic;
Medalii de Argint:
• Basme fantastice din Moldova, de Ion H. Ciubotaru si Silvia Ciubotaru;
• Marturii scrise si reprezentari plastice in spatiul geto-dacic (secolele IV a.Chr. – IVp. Chr.), vol. 1, de Silviu Sanie;
• Sisteme depozitionale costiere din Sarmatianul de pe Platforma Moldoveneasca, de Bogdan Gabriel Ratoi;
• Studii si cercetari in geostiinte. Vol. 2, coordonat de Constantin Rusu si Dumitru Bulgariu;
• Terapia simultana a durerilor mentale si fizice, coordonat de Bogdan-Alexandru Hagiu;
Diplome de Excelenta:
• Evreii din Harlau. Istoria unei comunitati. Editia a II-a revizuita si adaugita, de Carol Iancu;
• Alexandre Safran and the Jews of Romania during the installation of the communist regime. Newly discovered documents from the American and British diplomatic archives (1944-1948), de Carol Iancu;
• Riscuri bancare si stabilitate financiara. Rolul guvernantei si al reglementarilor, de Alin Andries, Florentina Melnic, Ioana Plescau si Nicu Sprincean;
• Competition, Risk Taking and Financial Stability in Banking – A Literature Survey, de Bogdan Capraru, Constantin-Marius Apostoaie, Sabina Andreea Cazan, Nicoleta-Livia Pintilie si Paula Andreea Terinte;
• Managementul furiei pentru (pre)adolescenti. Program psihoeducativ de grup, de Catalin Luca si Gheorghe Pascaru;
• Germania si neutralitatea Romaniei (1914-1916). Studii istorice, de Claudiu-Lucian Topor;
• Fitonimie biblica romaneasca, de Anuta-Rodica Ardelean;
• Boli, epidemii si asistenta medicala in Moldova (1700-1831), de Sorin Grigoruta;
• Literatura din exil, de Briscan Zara;
• Aplicarea kinetoprofilaxiei la femeia insarcinata, de Papp Enikő Gabriela;
• 100 de ani de gandire juridica romaneasca. Vespasian V. Pella si dezvoltarea dreptului penal international si national, coordonat de Aurora Ciuca;
• Politica monetara sub presiunea crizelor financiare, de Constantin-Marius Apostoaie;
• Competitivitate regionala europeana si dezvoltarea resurselor umane. Fundamente teoretice si bune practici, de Ana-Maria Bercu si Mihaela Tofan;
• Restituiri din domeniul slavisticii. Lectii, studii, articole, recenzii, documente, de Petru Caraman, editie ingrijita de Livia Cotorcea;
• „Toposforschung (…) im Lichte der U-topie”. Literarische Er-örterungen in/aus MittelOsteuropa, coordonat de Andrei Corbea-Hoisie si Ioan Lihaciu;
• Lexicografia academica romaneasca. Studii. Proiecte, editat de Gabriela Haja;
• Profesorul nostru, D. Irimia, editat de Cristina Irimia si Dinu Moscal;
• Lexicul social-politic roman intre 1821 si 1848, de Klaus Bochmann, traducere de Octavian Nicolae;
• Dinastia Lovinestilor. Lucrarile Conferintei nationale „Dinastia Lovinestilor”, Falticeni, 28-29 aprilie 2017, coordonat de Lucian Chisu si Sorin Guia;
• Peisaje ale preistoriei. O privire socioarheologica asupra amenintarilor fata de patrimoniu, de Marius Sidoriuc;
• Unirea Basarabiei cu Romania in presa vremii. Un studiu de caz: ziarul „Miscarea” (Iasi, 1917-1918), de Ion Agrigoroaiei;
• Le Beau. Actes du XXXVIe Congrès de l’Association des Sociétés de Philosophie de Langue Française (A.S.P.L.F.), coordonat de Petru Bejan si Daniel Schulthess;
• Retorica si convertire in filosofia antica. Un studiu asupra literaturii protreptice, de Constantin-Ionut Mihai;
• Competenta relationala in context scolar, de Luciana Frumos;
• Violenta asupra femeii. Ipostaze. Explicatii. Interventii, coordonat de Gabriela Irimescu si Mihaela Radoi;
• Educatia – provocari si tendinte. Volum dedicat profesorului George Vaideanu, coordonat de Mariana Momanu si Nicoleta Laura Popa;
• Revolutions. The Archeology of Change, editat de Emanuel Grosu, Anca-Diana Bibiri, Camelia Gradinaru, Andreea Mironescu si Roxana Patras;
• Preventia obezitatii la varsta copilariei. Cerealele integrale. Recomandari si bune practici, coordonat de Veronica Mocanu;
• Fundamentele stiintifice ale gestiunii financiar-contabile a intreprinderii. Editia a 3-a, revizuita si adaugita, de Marilena Mironiuc;
Trecutul ca text: idei, tendinte, controverse, de Andi Mihalache;Idem et Ipse. Centralism si localism in proiectele muzeale din La Belle Époque, de Andi Mihalache;
• Incidenta structurilor geodemografice asupra capacitatii motrice generale a elevilor de gimnaziu din Moldova Apuseana, de Ionut Onose;
• Dreptul contractelor. Curs universitar, de Sandra Gradinaru;
• Materiale anorganice biocompatibile, de Nicoleta Cornei, Constantin Virlan si Aurel Pui;
• Antreprenoriat. Infiintarea, finantarea si managementul noilor afaceri, de Sorin Gabriel Anton (coord.), Daniela-Tatiana Agheorghiesei, Liviu-George Maha si Mihaela Onofrei;
• Spatiul geografic romanesc la 100 de ani de la Marea Unire, coordonat de Ionel Muntele, Alexandru Ungureanu si Constantin Rusu;
• Geochimia starii coloidale, de Traian Gavriloaiei;
• Sa invatam limba romana! Manual pentru studentii straini (A1 – A1+), de Iolanda Sterpu;
• Zoonimie biblica romaneasca, de Cristina-Mariana Carabus;
• Povestea unor locuri. Monografia toponimica a comunei Filipesti, judetul Bacau, de Elena Isabelle Tamba;
• Vartolomei Mazareanu, „Ithica ieropolitica” (Ms. BAR 67). Editie de text si studiu filologico-lingvistic, de Carmen Livia Tudor;
• „Asa sa lumineze lumina voastra inaintea oamenilor…”. Studii si articole privitoare la istoria si viata Bisericii, de Daniel Nita-Danielescu;
• Fragmente de pe un camp de lupta: studii in istoria universitatii, coordonat de Florea Ioncioaia si Leonidas Rados;
• Fundatia universitara „Regele Ferdinand I” din Iasi. Scurt istoric pe baza documentelor, de Ioana Gafton;
• Palatul Fundatiei „Regele Ferdinand I”, de Irina Sandu si Lacramioara Chihaia;
• Catalogul manuscriselor slavo-romane din Biblioteca Manastirii Sucevita, de Olimpia Mitric;
• Dor de Iasi. Imagini din Iasul vechi/ Images du vieux Iasi/ Images of Old Iasi. Ed. a II-a, editat de Jil Silberstein;
• Originile si formarea unitatii romanesti, de Gheorghe I. Bratianu, editia a II-a revazuta si adaugita; traducere de Maria Pavel; editie, studiu introductiv, nota asupra editiei, note, comentarii si indice de Ion Toderascu;
• Cuvinte catre romani. Zece conferinte si prelegeri, de Gheorghe I. Bratianu, editia a treia revazuta si adaugita; editie, studiu introductiv, note si indice de Ion Toderascu;
• Vase de sticla de epoca romana descoperite la Durostorum/Ostrov – Ferma 4 (secolele I p. Chr. – IV p. Chr.), de Sever-Petru Botan si Dan Elefterescu;
• Fibulele de la Durostorum – Ostrov / The Brooches from Durostorum – Ostrov, de George Nutu si Dan Elefterescu;
• Iasi – capitala de razboi. Album, editat de Iana Balan, Catalin Botosineanu, Adrian-Bogdan Ceobanu, Vasilica Mirza, Petronela-Raluca Podovei si Adrian Vitalaru;
• Consilierea elevilor pentru cariera. Perspective constructiviste, de Roxana Axinte;
• A Handbook on Experiential Education. Pedagogical guidelines for teachers and parents, editat de Gianina-Ana Massari, Florentina-Manuela Miron, Violeta Kamantauskiene, Zeynep Alat, Cristina Mesquita, Marina Tzakosta, Jan Karel Verheij si Tija Zirina;
• Educatia adultilor. Identitate si context romanesc, de Magda-Elena Samoila;
• Calitate in educatie prin responsabilitate sociala si etica profesionala in activitatea de predare si evaluare, editat de Corneliu Iatu, Daniela-Tatiana Agheorghiesei, Ovidiu Gavrilovici si Adriana Prodan;
• Elogiu elocintei: Cicero, „Catilinarele”, de Constantin Salavastru;
• Drumul catre sine. Kierkegaard si devenirea in limitele stadiilor existentei, de Ionut Barliba;
• Socialism si razboi. Eseuri, documente, recenzii, de Friedrich August von Hayek, traducere de Elena Busca;
• Existenta, responsabilitate, transcendenta. Volum omagial Jan Patočka insotit de „Conferintele de la Louvain. Despre contributia Boemiei la idealul stiintei moderne”, de Jan Patočka, editat de Iulian Apostolescu si Anca Irina Ionescu;
• Diplomati si supusi otomani in Vechiul Regat. Relatii otomano-romane intre anii 1878 si 1908, de Silvana Rachieru;
• Valori sociale in comunitatile interconfesionale, de Nicoleta Ungureanu;
• Borders, Barriers and Protest Culture, editat de Ovidiu Gherasim-Proca;
• Granite, bariere si cultura protestatara, editat de Ovidiu Gherasim-Proca;
• Romania – de la Tripla Alianta la Antanta (1914-1919), de Jean-Noël Grandhomme, traducere de Ionela-Felicia Moscovici, Georgiana Medrea Estienne si Valentin Trifescu;
• Scriitori evrei de limba romana: de la rebeli marginali la critici canonici, de Camelia Craciun;
• Managementul organizatiei. Concepte si practici, de Panaite Nica, Andrei Stefan Nestian, Adriana Prodan, Aurelian Iftimescu, Silviu Tita, Irina Manolescu, Daniela Corodeanu Agheorghiesei si Viorica Bedrule-Grigoruta;
• Sondajul statistic, de Vasile-Danut Jemna;
• European Financial Regulation. EUFIRE 2018, editat de Mihaela Tofan, Irina Bilan si Ana-Maria Bercu;
• Identitati etno-confesionale si reprezentari ale Celuilalt in spatiul est-european: intre stereotip si vointa de a cunoaste, coordonat de Cristina Preutu si George Enache;
• Pedopeisaje din teatre de razboi. Ghidul celei de-a XXVIII-a editii a simpozionului „Factori si procese pedogenetice din zona temperata”, Iasi, 21-23 septembrie 2018, coordonat de Constantin Rusu, Dumitru Bulgariu si Ionut Vasiliniuc;
• Iasi – memoria unei capitale. Album, coordonat de Gheorghe Iacob.
EUROINVENT promoveaza creativitatea in context european, prin expunerea contributiilor scolilor academice, a institutiilor de cercetare, dar si a inventatorilor individuali din Romania si strainatate. Au fost prezente delegatii din peste 40 de tari, atat la expozitia de inventica, la Conferinta Internationala de Cercetari Inovative – ICIR 2019 (editia a V-a), precum si la Salonul de carte tehnico-stiintifica, artistica si literara sau la diverse workshopuri, toate asociate cu EUROINVENT.
EUROINVENT 2019 a fost organizat de Forumul Inventatorilor Romani, Asociatia pentru Ecologie si Dezvoltare Durabila, prin Centrul de Informare Europe Direct Iasi, Universitatea Tehnica „Gh. Asachi”, Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iasi, in parteneriat cu Universitatea de Medicina si Farmacie „Gr.T.Popa”, Institutul National de Cercetare Dezvoltare pentru Protectia Mediului si in colaborare cu Universitatea Nationala de Arte „G.Enescu” Iasi.
EUROINVENT este singurul eveniment din Romania care se desfasoara cu sprijinul IFIA – International Federation of Inventors’ Associations si WIIPA – World Inventions Intellectual Property Associations, reprezentand un eveniment european de elita in domeniul inovarii si cercetarii.
Publicație :Bună Ziua Iași
Studenţi ieşeni şi olandezi ajută la dezvoltarea satului românesc
Studenţi ai Universităţii de Ştiinţe Agricole şi Medicină Veterinară „Ion Ionescu de la Brad” din Iaşi (USAMV), alături de studenţi ai Universităţii „Van Hall Larenstein” din Olanda, ajută la găsirea celor mai bune soluţii care să dezvolte zona rurală românească, prin intermediul Agenţiei pentru Dezvoltare Regională Nord-Est (ADR).
În cadrul relaţiilor de colaborare dintre USAMV şi Universitatea VHL din Olanda se desfăşoară activitatea comună ce are drept scop identificarea oportunităţilor şi dezvoltarea inovaţiilor ce pot fi realizate în vederea îmbunătăţirii condiţiilor de trai din zona rurală. Anul acesta activitatea se desfăşoară în comuna Taşca, judeţul Neamţ, în perioada 19-26 mai 2019. La această activitate participă 71 de studenţi de la Universitatea din Olanda (specializarea Managementul Dezvoltării Internaţionale) coordonaţi de cinci profesori, 18 studenţi de la USAMV Iaşi alături de un cadru didactic îndrumător şi un reprezentat al ADR Nord-Est. Programul este iniţiat şi susţinut de partenerii olandezi fiind parte a unui proiect mai amplu pe care studenţii VHL l-au început în cursul anului universitar şi îl vor dezvolta mai departe, după finalizarea activităţii din România. „Studenţii Universităţii noastre au rolul de facilitatori în cadrul cercetărilor de teren între partenerii olandezi şi locuitorii zonelor aferente, dar vor prelua şi modelul de bune practici în vederea multiplicării acestuia pentru alte zone, dar şi pentru perfecţionarea abilităţilor de cercetare academică în domeniul dezvoltării rurale şi a economiei spaţiului rural”, a punctat asist. dr. Ştefan Viziteu coordonatorul studenţilor USAMV Iaşi.
Soluţiile, ideile de dezvoltare şi inovaţiile identificate vor fi prezentate în detaliu la sfârşitul activităţii factorilor de interes locali (oficialităţi ale comuneişi judeţului, reprezentanţi ai comunităţii şi antreprenori din zonă), a reprezentanţilor ADR Nord-Est şi ai USAMV urmând, a se evalua fezabilitatea acestora şi eventualele posibilităţi de implementare
Publicație :Evenimentul
Academia de Studii Economice din Bucureşti – oferta educaţională pentru admiterea la programele de studii universitare de licenţă 2019
Academia de Studii Economice din Bucureşti, liderul învăţământului superior economic şi de administraţie publică din România şi Europa de Sud-Est, universitatea cu cea mai bună inserţie a absolvenţilor pe piaţa muncii autohtone, scoate la concurs pentru admiterea la programele universitare de licenţă peste 7 200 de locuri, după cum urmează:
la învăţământul cu frecvenţă – 2 860 de locuri la buget şi 3 399 de locuri la taxă; 950 de locuri pentru învăţământul la distanţă şi cu frecvenţă redusă.
ASE oferă 24 de programe universitare de licenţă la învăţământul cu frecvenţă, care pot fi urmate în limbile română, engleză, franceză sau germană şi 11 – pentru învăţământul la distanţă şi cu frecvenţă redusă.
Înscrierile pentru admiterea la programele universitare de licenţă au loc în perioada 15-19 iulie, între orele 8.00 – 16.00.
Admiterea se desfăşoară prin concurs, bazat pe:
eseu motivational; probă scrisă de competenţă lingvistică - pentru candidaţii care optează pentru programe cu predare în limbă străină; media generală de admitere, calculată ca medie ponderată între media obţinută la examenul de bacalaureat (70%) şi media anilor de studii (30%).
Informaţii complete despre admiterea la ASE pot fi consultate pe pagina dedicată Admiterii 2019, care reflectă întreg procesul de admitere, cu precizări actualizate permanent despre calendarul admiterii, metodologie, conţinutul dosarului de înscriere, paşii candidatului, rezultatele admiterii ş.a.
ASE pune la dispoziţia viitorilor săi studenţi aproape 3 400 de burse de performanţă, studiu şi sociale, peste 500 de burse Erasmus, peste 5 000 de locuri în căminele proprii, numeroase parteneriate pentru stagii şi practică la firme de top, 400 000 de volume în bibliotecă, spaţii moderne de învăţământ, alte facilităţi de învăţare.
ASE este o universitate de cercetare avansată şi educaţie, cu o bună reputaţie internaţională, concretizată în situarea pe poziţii notabile în clasamentele internaţionale de prestigiu:
ASE este cea mai bine poziţionată dintre universităţile româneşti prezente în Top Shanghai, clasamentul cu cea mai mare autoritate din lume, în domeniile Economie, Administraţie publică, Administrarea afacerilor şi Management; ASE este universitatea cu cea mai bună reputaţie în rândul angajatorilor din România, conform clasamentului QS World University Rankings 2018; 81,35% dintre absolvenţi îşi găsesc de lucru în mai puţin de 3 luni de la terminarea facultăţii; ASE ocupă locul 1 în România în domeniul Ştiinţelor sociale, precum şi locul 501+ în lume în domeniul Administrarea afacerilor şi economie, în clasamentul Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2019 by Subject. ASE este poziţionată pe locul 101-200 în clasamentul Times Higher Education University Impact Rankings 2019
Dragi candidaţi la Academia de Studii Economice din Bucureşti,
Vă invit să vă alăturaţi cu toată încrederea celor peste 22 000 de studenţi ai celei mai performante universităţi economice şi de administraţie publică din Europa de Sud-Est.
Eu însumi sunt mândru să fiu absolventul ASE, pe care o slujesc din momentul în care am încheiat studiile superioare.
Pentru Admiterea din acest an, ASE scoate la concurs o ofertă generoasă de programe şi locuri, la buget şi taxă, pentru toate ciclurile şi formele de învăţământ - licenţă, masterat, doctorat.
Este important, când decideţi opţiunile pentru viitorul vostru, să luaţi în calcul reputaţia ASE în rândul angajatorilor şi gradul foarte bun de inserţie a absolvenţilor noştri pe piaţa muncii pentru că, sunt sigur, fiecare dintre voi doreşte să-şi găsească un job ofertant la finalizarea studiilor superioare.
Vă doresc, dragi candidaţi, să faceţi cea mai potrivită alegere pentru viitorul vostru.
Alegeţi un Lider şi veţi deveni un Lider! Prof. univ. dr. Nicolae Istudor, Rectorul ASE
Publicație :Adevărul
Oxford University to offer free year of study to disadvantaged students with lower grades
Move is 'sea change' in admissions for university, vice-chancellor says
Students from disadvantaged backgrounds that fail to meet the A-level grades required for entry to the University of Oxford will be offered a free year of study under new measures to widen access.
The institution is launching programmes to help disadvantaged students who are offered a place at Oxford but struggle to meet entry requirements, or need help with the transition.
One in four undergraduates at Oxford will be from the UK's most underrepresented backgrounds by 2023, the university has claimed. Currently only 15 per cent are from this group.
he announcement comes after both Oxford and Cambridge came under increased pressure over a lack of diversity after some of their colleges admitted failed to admit a single black student.
round 50 bright students who have experienced severe disadvantage or educational disruption, and are not in a position to make a “competitive application”, will be offered a foundation year.
Students eligible for the programme, who will be able to get a place with lower A-level grades than other applicants, may include refugees and children in care or with care responsibilities themselves.
The participants will all be based at Oxford colleges and provided they successfully complete the programme, will move on to the undergraduate degree for which they were admitted.
Another programme, aimed at students from poorer backgrounds who do have the required grades, will help up to 200 students get additional support to transition successfully from school.
The free scheme will comprise of structured study at home, plus two weeks of residential study at Oxford, just before the start of the undergraduate term.
When fully up and running, the programmes aim to help up to 250 state school students a year, representing 10 per cent of Oxford’s UK undergraduate intake.
Professor Louise Richardson, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, described the movement as a “sea change” in the admissions for the world-renowned university.
She said colleagues “have united behind a commitment to accelerate the pace at which we are diversifying our student body and ensuring that every academically exceptional student in the country knows that they have a fair chance of a place at Oxford."
Sir Peter Lampl, founder and chairman of social mobility charity Sutton Trust, said: “It’s great to see Oxford looking to new solutions to tackle the problem of how to support students from under-represented backgrounds. The scale of these programmes is really impressive.”
On the foundation year, Sir Peter said: “Many poorer students just narrowly miss out on places because they haven’t quite got the grades required. This will give a wider pool of students access to one of the world’s great universities.”
Last year, the University of Cambridge revealed similar plans to widen access when it announced it would give dozens of disadvantaged students that fail to meet the grades a free foundation year.
The vice chancellor said at the time, however, that he could not guarantee that all of the students on the foundation programme would be admitted to Cambridge for an undergraduate degree.
Angela Rayner, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said: “All our top universities should take urgent action to improve access to students from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds, and this is an important step in the right direction. For too long our top universities have been a closed club, with access dominated by a wealthy and privileged elite.
“Universities have not taken the necessary steps required to improve access and the government has taken no meaningful action to hold them to account for a shocking lack of progress.”
Publicație :The Independent
Elite universities scrap list of ‘preferred’ A-Levels amid concerns about arts
Guidance from top universities has been ‘damaging’ to arts education, group of musicians says
Elite universities have scrapped a list of “preferred” academic A-level subjects, which does not recognise the arts, amid criticism that it forced schools to narrow the curriculum.
The Russell Group, which represents the most selective universities, will no longer list “facilitating subjects”, the ones that open most doors to top universities, after sector figures said the guidance had squeezed out creative and technical subjects.
The group of 24 universities has dropped the list – which includes maths, English, sciences, languages, history and geography – as it says it has been “misinterpreted” by people who believe these are the only subjects that top universities will consider.
nstead the group will replace its guidance, first published eight years ago, with a new website that hopes to offer more personalised advice to students in a bid to widen access.
The move to abandon the list comes after critics suggested it had encouraged schools to sideline subjects such as art, music and drama, as well as vocational qualifications needed for industry.
A recent report from the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) called for the list to be axed amid concerns that arts subjects had been devalued.
Last year, Tory MP Robert Halfon, chair of the education select committee, called on the top universities to be more open to technical subjects in a bid to improve diversity.
His comments came after the group, which includes Oxford and Cambridge, was in the spotlight for failing to admit sufficient numbers of students from ethnic minorities and poorer backgrounds.
The Russell Group hopes the new interactive website, which will allow students to test numerous A-level combinations to see which degrees open up to them, will help pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds understand why subject choice matters.
It comes after a poll from the group, of more than 600 Year 10 pupils, found that private school students are much more likely than their peers in comprehensive schools to aspire to university, and they are more likely to make decisions about which subjects to choose with this aspiration in mind.
In a Voices piece for The Independent, Tim Bradshaw, chief executive of the Russell Group, said: “No matter how much teachers strive to provide the best possible careers advice to all pupils, it is extremely difficult to replicate the support and exposure afforded to those in better-off homes.
“These young people tend to grow up in households where selective universities are not a remote world, but a rite of passage.”
On the new guidance, he added: “Universities, like many employers, value a rounded education. If, for example, a budding young scientist has met their course’s requirements by taking biology and maths A-levels, why shouldn’t they vary their experience with a language or an arts subject?
“Academic versatility can only be a good thing in a world where we will all be living and working longer, and where more of us are likely to change our careers and directions along the way.
Education unions and leading figures from the arts sector have welcomed the changes.
Deborah Annetts, chief executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, said the list from the elite universities had been “damaging” to music education within schools – especially at A-level.
Jacqui O’Hanlon, director of education at the RSC, said the guidance had “unintentionally devalued arts subjects”.
She added: “This has led to a significant shift in the choices that young people make about which subjects will benefit them in the long term as well as contributing to the decline in numbers of arts teachers and hours spent teaching arts subjects in state-funded schools.”
Sir Nicholas Serota, chair of Arts Council England, said he was “delighted” to see guidance had been updated “to reflect the full variety of subjects that form a well-rounded education”.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, who welcomed the change, added that too much emphasis had been given to traditional academic subjects.
He said: “This is reflected also in the government’s obsession with driving the same set of subjects in schools through the English Baccalaureate.
“The effect of this narrow focus on these subjects has been to devalue other important subjects, including the creative arts, which also provide excellent preparation for many higher education courses and careers, and which underpin vital parts of our economy.”
Publicație :The Independent
Theology and Religious Studies risk 'disappearing' from universities, report warns
Theology and Religious Studies risk “disappearing” from universities, a report has warned, as figures show that the number of students has almost halved in six years.
Over 14,000 students were enrolled on such degree courses in 2011/12, which dropped down to 7,585 by 2017/18, according to an analysis by the British Academy.
The figures relate to all higher education students taking course in Theology and Religious Studies course, including undergraduates, masters, doctorates, foundation courses and diplomas.
While Theology and Religious Studies has been on a downward trend for the past six years, there has been an increase in students taking Philosophy courses over the same time period.
Prof Diarmaid MacCulloch, an expert in church history at Oxford University and vice president of the British Academy, said the figures are “alarming”.
“I am extremely concerned about the drop in such a short period, it is really very alarming,” he told the Daily Telegraph.
“The problem starts at school. Teachers are not directing people in this important direction and not seeing the value in Theology and Religious Studies.”
The report said that the decline cannot be explained by subject choices at school, since A-level entries in Religious Education have increased in the past six years, more than doubling in England and Wales between 2003 and 2017.
“Theology and Religious Studies has been on a downward trend in both applications and enrolment of undergraduate students from 2012/13 onwards,” the report says.
“If this trend continues, [the] provision will come under serious threat at many institutions and the department closures and mergers, which have already started, will likely continue.”
The British Academy, which promotes humanities and social sciences, said it will work with the Theology and Religious Studies community to “assess the vulnerability” of the subject and “ensure a sustainable future”.
The report also examined the characteristics of Theology and Religious Studies academics, and found that staff were predominantly male, as well as older on average than staff in other humanities departments.
Professor Roger Kain, vice-President of research and higher education policy at the British Academy, said “Not only are the subjects’ popularity on the wane but the problem is confounded by the profile of their teaching staff.
“If more ethnically and gender diverse groups do not rise through the ranks, there is a danger that these highly relevant disciplines disappear from our universities.”
Publicație :The Telegraph
Does university assessment still pass muster?
Most universities still rely on exams and assessed essays to grade their students. But as the fourth industrial revolution, employability and student satisfaction all rise up the agenda, many experts are suggesting that assessment needs to much more closely resemble real-world tasks. Anna McKie marks the arguments
What is the defining image of the academic side of undergraduate life? For many centuries, it has surely been the student bent over the exam hall desk or library table, scribbling furiously. And although the modern library image would more accurately feature a computer screen with a vast amount of tabs open, the time spent sweating over exams or essays remains most graduates’ abiding memory of pursuing their degree. Assessment is at the heart of university life, and has a significant impact on what and how students learn – and, ultimately, what they go on to achieve.
And while there have been some innovations in assessment practice over the past decade, “there is still a huge reliance on closed book examinations and coursework essays in most subjects”, according to Neil Morris, director of digital learning at the University of Leeds.
There are many in higher education who have long believed that this “learn and regurgitate” assessment formula is not conducive to true learning. One recent paper that looks into alternative ways of examining students points to a wealth of research showing that memorisation is the “lowest level of learning”, as students quickly forget what they memorise. The paper, “Using principles of authentic assessment to redesign written examinations and tests”, published in January in Innovations in Education and Teaching International, notes that there is a strong knowledge-testing culture in many global regions, including South America, South-east Asia and the Middle East. However, “memorisation ill-equips students for the complex demands of life and work [because it makes it] difficult to engage in deep learning”.
According to Morris, the traditional focus of universities’ assessment practices on “knowledge recall, reasoning and structured writing” has the benefit of being scalable to large cohorts of students, allowing universities to ensure that each individual meets strict criteria for degree standards.
However, while this approach does cover some of the essential abilities needed in the workplace, it does not match employers’ increasing needs for a wider set of skills as the fourth industrial revolution begins to unfold, with the internet allowing instant access to vast swathes of knowledge and as artificial intelligence develops to the point where it can take on many traditional graduate roles. In Morris’ view, this means that the focus of modern universities should move away from knowledge retrieval and retention and on to knowledge assimilation, problem-solving and team-working.
Phil Race, a visiting professor of education at Edge Hill and Plymouth universities, agrees. For him, the cramming that traditional exams encourage is “far from how we access information in real life now, and will [remain anachronistic] until we have the internet in exams”. But, according to Jon Scott, pro vice-chancellor for student experience at the University of Leicester, it is important for universities to teach students to evaluate “how credible and reliable” various online knowledge sources are likely to be.
“Those skills are really important and it’s very important that those are tested,” he says. “The days where there was one textbook and you had to learn it are long gone.” And while all disciplines have a “fundamental knowledge base that students just have to know” – memory of which can legitimately be tested in an exam – the extent of that knowledge base varies by subject. Medical or law students, for instance, must be able to recall a fairly large amount of information without having to look it up if they are to be successful in the workplace. But other, less vocational subjects do not have the same imperative.
“The most important thing is making assessment much more akin to real life,” Scott says. “Some disciplines are closer to that already, while some have quite a long way to go.”
Over the years, many universities have adopted assessed essays as an alternative to exams, on the grounds that it allows for more considered reflection and removes the advantage offered by traditional exams to those who deal better with the pressure and can write faster. But Scott notes that, for the majority of subject areas, essays are not necessarily any more closely related to the way that knowledge is used in real life than exams are.
“For example, [in the workplace] you might need to write something very succinct. Writing something short is actually quite challenging and students should learn how to get their message across in that format,” he says. “Another area is how to handle data and how to present it, as the level of misuse of data by politicians and the press, for example, is frightening. You could do a timed activity under exam conditions, such as an interpretation of a piece of information or a piece of data, which requires students to demonstrate knowledge and use it effectively.”
With such an array of potential approaches, how is a university department to decide which to adopt? According to Emma Kennedy, education adviser (academic practice) at Queen Mary University of London, they need to ask: “What does success look like? What does your outcome at the end of the degree look like?” The answers to those questions "can be a bit lost in the way we assess current students”, she says.
“One thing that is really valuable that we don’t often do is rewarding students for taking notice of feedback and improvement,” she says. One way of doing that is known as ipsative assessment. It assesses students based on how well they have improved on their last assignment, rather than competing against their peers. It has yet to take off widely, but a 2011 paper by Gwyneth Hughes, a reader in higher education at the UCL Institute of Education, argues that adopting it would focus university assessment on genuine learning. According to the paper, “Towards a personal best: a case for introducing ipsative assessment in higher education”, published in Studies in Higher Education, “ipsative feedback has the potential to enable learners to have a self-investment in achievable goals, to become more intrinsically motivated through focusing on longer term development and to raise self-esteem and ultimately performance. An ipsative approach also might encourage teachers to provide useable and high quality generic formative feedback.”
For Jesse Stommel, executive director of the division of teaching and learning technologies at the University of Mary Washington, a public liberal arts and sciences university in Virginia, most assessment mechanisms in higher education don’t assess learning – despite universities’ claim that this is what they value most. “Meaningful learning resists being quantified via traditional assessment approaches like grades, academic essays, predetermined learning outcomes and standardised tests,” he says. Exams, meanwhile, are at their best when they are used as a formative tool for learning, he says.
“Our approaches treat students like they’re interchangeable…but not every student begins in the same place,” Stommel says. He believes that an approach called “authentic assessment” is more meaningful and enables students to take ownership of their learning, and to collaborate rather than compete with each other.
The idea of authentic assessment is at the crux of the debate about assessment in higher education, especially as the fourth industrial revolution transforms our ideas about what is needed from the modern graduate. It is focused on testing “higher-order skills”, such as problem-solving and critical thinking, through tasks that are more realistic or contextualised to the “real world”.
Opinion varies on what exactly constitutes authentic assessment, but almost all experts agree that appropriate exercises mimic professional practice, such as group activities or presentations.
Stommel says authentic assessment also gives students a wider audience for their academic work, such as their peers, their community and potentially even a digital audience. “For example, I’m a fan of collaborative assessment, which allows the students the opportunity to learn from and teach each other,” he says.
In some disciplines, authentic assessment is already in full effect. The “objective structured clinical examination” is a standard method used in medical schools. Students are observed undertaking particular practical procedures, such as taking a patient’s history or doing a blood test, allowing them to be evaluated on areas critical to healthcare professionals, such as communication skills and the ability to handle unpredictable patient behaviour.
Students also appear to appreciate authentic assessment. A 2016 paper by researchers at Deakin University, “Authentic assessment in business education: its effects on student satisfaction and promoting behaviour”, published in the journal Studies in Higher Education, looked at the use of authentic assessment in an undergraduate business studies course and found that it increased student satisfaction, especially among those who are highly career-oriented.
Redesigning assessment in this way has also been promoted as a method to reduce contract cheating. Although essays are able to test more than rote memorisation, they are particularly prone to this kind of cheating, and a 2018 survey estimated that as many as one in seven students had used the services of an essay mill.
To combat that problem, Louise Kaktiņš, a lecturer in the linguistics department at Macquarie University in Sydney, proposes the use of more in-class assessments, particularly exams.
“For all subjects…it should be compulsory to have both mid-semester exams and final exams,” Kaktiņš writes in a 2018 paper, “Contract cheating advertisements: what they tell us about international students’ attitudes to academic integrity”, published in Ethics and Education. “The only way to see the level of students’ output is to ensure that the majority of gradable work is incorporated into exams because an exam is the only thing that students cannot acquire via contract cheating,” she adds.
Thomas Lancaster, senior teaching fellow in Imperial College London’s department of computing, and Robert Clarke, a lecturer at Birmingham City University, have written extensively on contract cheating and have advocated the introduction of face-to-face examinations, or an oral component to complement written assessments.
Meanwhile, an Australian study, “Contract cheating and assessment design: exploring the relationship”, published in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, found four assessment types that are perceived by students to be the least likely to be outsourced to essay mills: in-class tasks, personalised and unique assignments, vivas, and reflections on placements. However, according to the analysis of survey responses from 14,086 students and 1,147 educators in eight Australian universities, these are also the least likely forms to be set by educators. Only between a quarter and a third of lecturers said that they set such exercises with at least moderate frequency.
In 2016, the Australian government commissioned the same researchers to investigate the use of authentic assessment to tackle the problem. The resulting paper, “Does authentic assessment assure academic integrity?: Evidence from contract cheating data", forthcoming in Higher Education Research and Development, analysed 221 assignment orders to essay writing services and 198 assessment tasks in which contract cheating was detected. The results show that all kinds of assessment – authentic or not – were “routinely outsourced by students”.
“A lot of research and advisory documents from higher education quality bodies advise academics to use authentic assessment design as a way of ensuring academic integrity,” says Cath Ellis, associate dean (education) at UNSW Sydney. However, the research shows that “it doesn’t do what most people think it does. One thing you would assume was that if authentic assessment design did make it possible to design out contract cheating you wouldn’t see orders placed on contract cheating websites for these kinds of assessments. But, lo and behold, we found that assessment tasks were being contract cheated that were both authentic and not.”
Ellis points out that a lot of the academic articles making the claim that authentic assessment prevents cheating do not offer any evidence to substantiate it. “We hypothesise that people think that it will be effective because it makes assessment tasks so compelling or enjoyable that students won’t want to cheat,” she says.
The study's results do not entail that designing assessment effectively won’t reduce the use of essay mills or that academics shouldn’t set authentic assessment tasks, Ellis stresses. But universities should not become complacent and “stop looking for [cheating] or talking to students about it”.
Moreover, educators must not focus all their attention on designing assessment to stamp out contract cheating because that would be to the detriment of education and those who do not cheat, Ellis adds. In addition, authentic assessment is more time consuming for those who implement it, Ellis admits, and it can be hard to convince those working within the higher education sector to change, particularly at large, ancient institutions.
For Race, a better idea would be to switch to assessment via computer-based activities (with full access to the internet). This, he says, would have advantages over both exam- and essay-based approaches in that it would neither disadvantage slow handwriting nor offer any opportunity for cheating: “We know whose work it actually is if the technology can verify who’s using it and when,” he says.
But Kennedy of Queen Mary points out that there are external factors that can make changing the way universities do things difficult. For example, there are rules in the UK about being clear to students about what assessment they will experience and making sure that students on comparable degrees are assessed comparably.
Universities are expected by governments to rank students on their ability upon graduation, and employers want to know what particular degree classifications actually mean. Students, too, want to know what the value of their degree is, especially now that they are paying high fees, Kennedy says. “We don’t want to see them as consumers and they don’t necessarily see themselves as customers – which is commendable – but they are paying a lot of money and they do see it as an investment.”
All of this makes it difficult for universities to unilaterally transform their assessment practices.
Part of the concern around the meaning of degree classifications relates to the grade inflation that is perceived to have become rife in higher education in recent decades. The concern has been particularly high in the UK, with some suggesting that so many students now get a 2:1 or first-class degree that it would be better to move to a more granular way of grading them, such as a US-style grade point average, which gives an average mark based on assessments throughout the undergraduate years.
Observation of rising GPAs in the US has diminished initial hopes that such a switch could help address grade inflation, but advocates point to other benefits. A major one is that a GPA system lessens the stakes at exam time; although UK universities do implement assessments throughout the undergraduate years, a much higher weighting is accorded to end-of-year exams.
According to Kennedy, education scholars in the UK have recently become interested in the idea of a whole-programme approach to assessment. “Most [university departments] think about how they assess at a modular level, but students don’t take modules [in isolation]. It’s worth thinking about how different kinds of assessments are balanced across the programme,” she says. “Practically, you want to assess everything at the end, but that can put a lot of stress on students.”
That is particularly true for disabled students. Under a recent Twitter hashtag, “why disabled students drop out”, one student wrote that she found her degree's 10 days of three-hour final exams – which were the “be-all and end-all” of her course – too much to handle. “Assessments (almost) entirely exam based and pushed together at the end are inherently able-ist,” she wrote.
Mary Washington’s Stommel agrees. “Our approaches need to be less algorithmic and more human, more subjective, more compassionate,” he says. “Most of our so-called objective assessment mechanisms fail at being objective and prove instead to reinforce bias against marginalised populations.”
Moreover, Leicester’s Scott adds that “students need to know how they're getting on. If you don't have any assessment till the end, it’s very hard for them to tell.” For this reason, carrying out formative assessment throughout the learning process is very valuable – both for students and staff, allowing tutors to identify those who might need additional support. The problem, Scott warns, that it is often challenging to get students to engage with formative assessments if they don’t count towards the end degree result.
Race thinks that the solution is for universities to adopt a broad array of more learner-centred approaches to assessment, with “the mystery removed” such that students are able to “practise self-assessing and peer-assessing to deepen their learning of subject matter”. He also thinks teaching staff should be required to undertake continuing professional development to keep up with advances in assessment and feedback. This should both increase the quality and streamline the amount of assessment, he says.
But it is clear that such a world remains a long way off. As things stand, Race regularly meets “many lecturers for whom the burden of marking students’ work and giving them feedback has spiralled out of control”.
It seems that everyone – staff, students and employers alike – would benefit from a fresh approach.
Publicație :The Times
EU academics in the UK do not live in a Brexit-proof bubble
Colleagues’ failure to fully grasp the more hostile lived reality for EU nationals post-referendum is furthering alienation, says Jawiria Naseem
“We live in an academic bubble. There is no major interaction with the reality of British society. In this bubble, everything is ideal, everything is great! But outside this bubble, things are different. Before the referendum, there was no bubble. Everything was the same. Right after the referendum, things changed. Universities do not realise that.”
These are the words of Greek-born Vernados, a researcher in life and environmental sciences at an English university. They articulate the experience of many European Union staff in UK higher education. And with the prospect of a no-deal Brexit only prolonged by the latest extension to the UK’s date of exit from the EU, the psychological strain of the uncertainty surrounding EU nationals’ rights to work and live in the UK post-Brexit is becoming ever more debilitating.
I have surveyed 162 academic and professional EU staff at English and Scottish universities, and directly interviewed 25. The majority feel very (45 per cent) or somewhat (45 per cent) concerned about their rights. The other 10 per cent have permanent residency or British citizenship.
Moreover, since the June 2016 referendum, the experience even of walking down the street changed for EU nationals. “Go home, immigrant!” Galdino, an Italian member of professional services at a Scottish university, was told by a passer-by as he was speaking to his wife in Italian. “It was a shock,” he tells me. “For me, British society was flexible; it’s meant to accept differences.”
This experience of increased hostility, however, is difficult to discuss at work because of colleagues’ widespread assumption that EU university staff are not only immune to the implications of Brexit but are positioned differently to the general migrant population, both from the EU and further afield.
“I don’t think I have experienced…day-to-day racism because I have the benefit of being white,” says Inka, a Finnish academic in arts and humanities at a Scottish university. “But when I shared my concerns about Brexit with colleagues, it was pretty strange. They said: ‘We want immigrants like you! You’re white!’…They really said that!”
No respondent reports any racism or discrimination from colleagues or management, but 88 per cent feel less welcome in the UK since the referendum. And some report subtle forms of racism from students. When Marlise, a Scottish-based Portuguese academic in engineering and physical sciences, was pregnant, she was asked whether she was “going back to [her] country for the baby’s birth since [she is] not allowed to use the NHS”. Similarly, Jaela, a Dutch-born academic in social sciences at an English university – and one of only nine minority ethnic participants in this study – reports that, in evaluation forms, a student claimed that her accent made it impossible to understand her lectures.
After the referendum, the House of Commons Education Committee launched an inquiry into the impact of Brexit on UK higher education. Universities uniformly reported their apprehension regarding retention and recruitment of EU staff and students, as well as loss of EU funding. Yet the vocal support for existing EU staff has somewhat faded away with time. Yes, Universities UK continues to lobby, but how does that address EU staff’s lived experiences? Support needs to be locally implemented. Only 7 per cent of survey participants say they do not need support from their employer. And even when support is available (in the form of email communications and/or meetings), 60 per cent say that it is not enough.
Mixed messages are being sent out by the recent participation of universities in the government’s pilot of its settled status scheme. Is this really offering local support, or is it a silent acceptance of the galling reality that those rights will not be granted automatically?
The situation is particularly troubling for EU professional services staff, whose contribution is rarely mentioned (reiterating the high-skilled versus low-skilled worker discourse). They are not seen as the ones who attract research funding and students.
In addition, Brexit-related communications with staff paradoxically overlook the situation of EU citizens. Edeline, a Greek-born academic in social sciences at an English university, recalls one email to all staff about travel to the EU after Brexit. “It said to renew passports and apply for a Schengen visa. But that’s for those who are British! What am I supposed to do? They don’t even acknowledge you. Either they don’t understand Brexit or silence is the default treatment for us.”
A colleague recently wrote in Times Higher Education that UK-based academics should not rely on our universities to save them from the “Brexit fallout”, and should seek positions on the continent. In my study, 64 per cent of respondents have decided to leave the UK or intend to leave should the UK government fail to secure their rights.
As a major employer of EU nationals, universities must do more not only to reassure their staff but to acknowledge and take into account their lived experiences. Academia is not a bubble and those who treat it as such risk seeing its international excellence quickly deflate.
Publicație :The Times
University staff ‘at breaking point’ as counselling demand soars
Hepi report ties increase to mounting workloads and performance management
The marketisation of higher education has been accompanied by sharp increases in the use of counselling and occupational health services by UK university staff, according to a new study.
Responses to Freedom of Information requests by 59 institutions showed that counselling referrals climbed by an average of 77 per cent between 2009 and 2015, while occupational health referrals rose by 64 per cent.
The figures are detailed in a report published by the Higher Education Policy Institute on 23 May, Pressure Vessels: The Epidemic of Poor Mental Health among Higher Education Staff, written by Liz Morrish, a visiting fellow in the School of Languages and Linguistics at York St John University.
Some universities reported particularly large jumps in the number of referrals, with many of these coming after the rise in tuition fees in England in 2012, which is associated by many with increased pressure on staff to enhance the student experience. Between 2013 and 2016, for example, the number of staff referred to counselling services shot up by 146 per cent at De Montfort University and by 123 per cent at the University of Bath.
Some longer-term increases were even larger: for example, between 2009 and 2015, the number of referrals soared by 316 per cent at the University of Warwick, and by 126 per cent at Newcastle University; while between 2010 and 2015, the rise at the University of Leeds was 158 per cent.
In terms of occupational health, referrals at the University of Kent rocketed by 424 per cent between 2009 and 2015, and by 179 per cent at the University of Cambridge.
Women appear to be particularly at risk – 70 per cent of those referred for counselling and 60 per cent of those sent to occupational health were female – while professional services staff accounted for 65 per cent of occupational health referrals.
Dr Morrish’s report says that the catalysts for concern about mental health in universities included the suicide, in February 2018, of Malcolm Anderson, an accounting lecturer at Cardiff University. He fell to his death at Cardiff’s business school after struggling to cope with his mounting workload, an inquest heard.
Dr Morrish says that academic workloads are too high and that researchers suffer increased pressure because of the use of performance management, which has introduced expectations that academics should consistently publish research of a certain standard, or attract set levels of grant income, or face potential dismissal. This has been facilitated and driven by, Dr Morrish argues, the growing availability of metrics from national exercises such as the research excellence framework, and from university league tables.
Another concern for Dr Morrish is the expanding use of “precarious” fixed-term contracts by UK universities – 33 per cent of academics were employed this way in 2017-18 – which increase pressure on staff.
More broadly, she says, “a message from management that one is never doing enough” can “rapidly lead to employee burnout”, and that bullying and competition blight academics’ lives.
“Academics are inherently vulnerable to overwork and self-criticism, but the sources of stress have now multiplied to the point that many are at breaking point,” Dr Morrish said. “It is essential to take steps now to make universities more humane and rewarding workplaces which allow talented individuals to survive and thrive.”
Dr Morrish’s proposed solutions include not scheduling workload “up to the max” and improving recognition for academic citizenship activities, reducing reliance on metrics-based performance management, and providing more secure employment conditions.
Many of the universities named in the Hepi report said that growth in the number of staff accessing counselling and occupational health services correlated with expansion of these services and efforts to encourage employees to make use of them.
In the report’s foreword, Mike Thomas, vice-chancellor of the University of Central Lancashire, says that repeated studies indicate “a deteriorating level of sector confidence, frustration about its direction of travel and an increasing level of poor mental health”.
“[The] report clearly indicates, with evidence, that directive, performance management approaches are counter-productive to the output, efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation and also to staff well-being and mental health,” Professor Thomas writes. “If such an approach works, why are so many of our colleagues so unwell and continue to be so?”
Universities UK said that the mental health of staff and students was a “priority” for institutions. “Across the sector, there are many practical initiatives to support staff in mental health difficulties, to improve career paths and workplace cultures,” UUK said.
“Universities do recognise that there is more that can be done to create the supportive working environments in which both academic and professional staff thrive, including ongoing conversations about the structural conditions of work in higher education.”
Publicație :The Times
London university develops ‘Indigenous-led’ teaching and research
King’s College London moves opens debate over role of such knowledge in countries without significant Aboriginal populations
King’s College London has unveiled the UK’s first “Indigenous-led” research and teaching effort, sparking debate about the role of such knowledge in countries without significant Indigenous populations of their own.
The King’s Indigenous initiative, which has an initial focus on health and education, aims to develop research collaborations between the university’s academics and experts in Indigenous knowledge – for example, between researchers in medicine and traditional healing.
The programme also plans to develop optional modules on Indigenous health and culture, which could develop in the longer term into a full degree.
The initiative’s architects say that King’s Indigenous sets out to “develop innovative approaches to global challenges by exploring, testing and applying First Peoples-centred concepts and practices of research, exchange and teaching” and to “build new, ‘decolonised’, robust, nurturing and sustainable structures of pedagogy”.
Ian Henderson, director of the Menzies Australia Institute at King’s, said that greater awareness of cross-cultural working could be very useful for trainee doctors in the UK, and particularly those who went on to work internationally and had dealings with “the 370 million First People alive in the world today”.
While it was valuable to be exposed to other ways of thinking, Dr Henderson saw a particular significance in Australian Indigenous Knowledge, given that “Aboriginal Australians have the longest continuous culture in the world”. “They have managed to live through other periods of climate change and sustain their culture,” suggesting that their knowledge could contain “a vital quality we want to build into any form of knowledge or technological development if we want to survive as a race”, he said.
Australian and Canadian universities in particular have made significant efforts to “indigenise” higher education, both in terms of recruiting and supporting more Indigenous students and faculty. However, some critics of attempts to build Indigenous medicine and science into university curricula have argued that “respect” for such knowledge and the authority of “elders” can mean that it is not adequately tested according to academic standards.
Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, said that the King’s initiative would have to guard against this.
“When I read things [on the King’s website] like ‘innovate at the intersection of multiple cultures of knowing, researching and teaching’, I ask myself what they really mean. Call me sceptical, but I fear that such terminology might invite quackery and worse,” Professor Ernst said.
Other academics have praised the King’s initiative. Serena Masino, lecturer in international development at the University of Westminster, said that it was “informed by the objective to decolonise at least part of the medical knowledge we rely on today”. Although this did not “mean invalidating or undermining biomedical knowledge in any way”, she said, bringing Indigenous medical knowledge from Australia and beyond into the curriculum could lead to benefits “from improved ways of environmental conservation down to alternative ways of providing psychological support to patients from different backgrounds residing in the UK”, while also playing a “crucial role in conflict or public health emergency interventions”.
Victoria Grieve-Williams, an honorary Indigenous research fellow at the University of Sydney, pointed to “the fact of the Indigenous peoples being the ‘sentinels’ for the Anthropocene – they are increasingly living the marginalised, uncertain and unstable lives that the rest of humanity also face into the future”. Furthermore, “Aboriginal philosophy shares much in common with other Indigenous philosophies and has many applications in diverse areas, globally”, notably in the fields of “well-being and human resilience”, she argued.
Dr Henderson said that King’s was in part responding to the desires of Australian partner universities to “develop aspirations for international careers for their Indigenous leaders”. Fifteen national health leadership fellows from the University of Melbourne’s Poche Centre for Indigenous Health are currently visiting London, coinciding with an exhibition, The Art of Healing: Australian Indigenous Bush Medicine, which celebrates 65,000 years of healing practices through contemporary art and runs at Bush House until 28 June.
In Dr Henderson’s view, there was “always robust debate within Indigenous communities about any knowledge”. Projects are likely to focus on Australian Aboriginal knowledge initially, but could branch out to other First Nation cultures globally in future.
“There are certain protocols about the sharing of the knowledge, but once the knowledge is shared, I have great confidence in its robustness and no anxiety about it being put up for any form of testing which is respectful and directly engaged with the custodians of that knowledge. Anything taught at university has to stand up to the critical gaze,” Dr Henderson said.
Publicație :The Times
Universities ‘contribute little to generic skill development’
Schools take credit for majority of literacy and numeracy development
As universities around the world face pressure to meet employers’ demands for more literate and numerate problem-solvers, a new study has found little evidence that higher education cultivates these attributes.
Research by Australian econometrics expert Ross Williams suggests that generic skills are mostly nurtured at school, and universities do little to enhance them.
Professor Williams reached this conclusion after comparing national-level scores from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), which gauges 15-year-olds’ abilities in areas including mathematics and reading, with corresponding results from the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC).
“There doesn’t seem to be any development of generic skills at university per se,” said Professor Williams, a former University of Melbourne economics dean and honorary fellow with the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research. “It emphasises the importance of schools in developing generic skills.”
The study has been published in the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management. Professor Williams collected Pisa and PIAAC scores from 31 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Oceania, undertaking exhaustive efforts to ensure the figures were comparable.
They included matching cohorts from the two assessments, modifying the Pisa data to allow for poor performers who were unlikely to have progressed into higher education, and adjusting PIAAC scores to take account of early school-leavers who had not participated in Pisa.
PIAAC data were only collected for people aged between 20 and 24, to ensure that the findings reflected recent higher education policy.
Professor Williams stressed the “pitfalls” of using aggregated national data and said that his study relied on assumptions. But robustness checks had corroborated the findings, which also echoed the results of earlier studies based on individual-level data.
Overall, schooling explained 70 per cent of adults’ generic skills. Post-school learning, including employment and life experience as well as higher education, was responsible for the remaining 30 per cent.
The study rated Finland highest for adults’ generic skills, followed by the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Belgium. Professor Williams said that these countries also had impressive scores at school level.
Anglosphere countries performed relatively poorly at both stages. Professor Williams was hesitant to offer an explanation for this, stressing that he was an economist rather than an educationalist, but said “maybe they don’t drill their students as much. If you think of Finland and the Nordic countries, they go more for the basics.”
He said that the most surprising result was that there was not more “convergence” in different countries’ scores when adult skills were assessed. Most countries that performed poorly in Pisa did likewise in PIAAC.
An exception was Russia, where adults’ numeracy scores were substantially better than those of school students. But this was the “standout example”, he said.
The study found that in countries with significant higher education expenditure, universities contributed more to generic skills cultivation than their counterparts in nations that invested less. But somewhat surprisingly, it found the opposite in countries with the strongest research publication performance – suggesting that when research is prioritised in university systems, acquisition of literacy and numeracy can suffer.
Professor Williams stressed that the negative effect of research was “very small” and said that the relatively poor generic skills in the US, UK, Canada and Australia – all strong research performers – may have been a factor.
Publicație :The Times
Hausse des frais de scolarité pour les étudiants étrangers: le Conseil d’État rejette le recours de trois associations
Le recours en référé déposé par trois associations pour «excès de pouvoir» a été rejeté par le Conseil d’État, qui a estimé que le nouveau montant des droits d’inscription demeurait «inférieur au coût réel de la formation».
À partir de septembre, les frais de scolarité pour les étudiants venus de l’extérieur de l’Union européenne s’élèveront à 2 770 euros en licence et 3 770 euros en master. Le Conseil d’État a rejeté ce mardi la demande de suspension de l’arrêté qui prévoit une hausse des frais d’inscription dans les universités pour les étudiants extra-européens à partir de la rentrée prochaine. Trois associations avaient déposé un recours en référé (procédure d’urgence) pour «excès de pouvoir» devant le Conseil d’État.
Les associations estimaient qu’une telle augmentation des droits d’inscription pour les étudiants venant de pays hors Union européenne «méconnaissait divers principes protégés par la Constitution et les engagements internationaux de la France», dont «le droit à un égal accès à la formation professionnelle indépendamment de l’origine de l’étudiant», selon un communiqué de la plus haute juridiction administrative française.
Plusieurs dérogations et mesures d’accompagnement
Le juge des référés a relevé que cette augmentation des frais d’inscription «était assortie de plusieurs dérogations (notamment en faveur des doctorants et de certains cursus), et de mesures d’accompagnement pour les étudiants concernés (bourses et dispositifs d’exonération)». Il a ensuite estimé que les personnes concernées par cette augmentation, «qui viennent en France dans le seul but d’y poursuivre des études, pouvaient être regardées comme placées dans une situation différente de celle des étrangers ayant vocation à résider durablement sur le territoire». Et ces montants des droits d’inscription «demeurent inférieurs au coût réel de la formation des intéressés».
Il a par conséquent «rejeté les demandes des associations requérantes». À partir de la rentrée prochaine, les étudiants venus de pays hors Union européenne devront s’acquitter de 2 770 euros en licence et de 3 770 euros en master, soit des frais 15 à 16 fois plus élevés que pour leurs homologues européens. Les Non-Européens ayant déjà entamé leurs études en France ne sont pas concernés par cette hausse, de même que les doctorants.
Publicație :Le Figaro
Faire Sciences Po, entre fantasme et désillusion
Ce samedi a lieu le concours commun de sept instituts d’études politiques. Des établissements devenus de plus en plus attractifs, mais qui peuvent parfois décevoir ceux qui ont franchi la très haute barrière d’entrée.
La majorité des admis au concours commun de 2018 du réseau Sciences Po avait déjà une année de prépa ou d’études supérieures derrière eux. Sciences po Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Les statistiques sont cruelles. Cette année, 10 300 jeunes, lycéens ou étudiants en première année d’études supérieures, se sont inscrits aux épreuves du concours commun des instituts d’études politiques (IEP), qui se déroulent ce samedi 25 mai 2019. Mais parmi eux, seulement 1 200 feront leur rentrée en septembre et entameront ces cursus de cinq ans. Si les lycéens de terminale représentaient en 2018 les trois quarts des candidats, la majorité des admis (57 %) avaient déjà une année de prépa ou d’études derrière eux.
Une situation ultra-concurrentielle qui dit beaucoup de l’attractivité des « sciences po » auprès des lycéens. Sous cette appellation sont regroupés les sept IEP du « concours commun » (Aix-en-Provence, Lille, Lyon, Rennes, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Strasbourg et Toulouse), mais aussi Sciences Po Paris, l’IEP de Bordeaux et celui de Grenoble, qui ont chacun des processus d’admission distincts.
Et pourtant : sélectionnés parmi des milliers de candidats, de nombreux étudiants développent un rapport ambigu à l’institution tant désirée et idéalisée. Entre fierté d’avoir été « choisi » et de figurer parmi les rares admis… Et une pointe de déception vis-à-vis d’une formation touche-à-tout, parfois un peu déroutante, où l’essentiel semble se jouer hors des salles de classe.
Alice Ferber, 19 ans, a obtenu en 2017 son ticket pour l’IEP de Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Yvelines), dernier-né de la bande et rattaché aux universités de Cergy-Pontoise et de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. En avril dernier, elle donnait, avec des camarades de son cours de médiation culturelle, une représentation sur « les droits humains » au palais de Chaillot, à Paris. Ils étaient une vingtaine à se mettre en scène devant tableaux et statues, et à déclamer des textes autour des notions de liberté et d’égalité. Le lieu, imposant, était adapté au thème de leur représentation : c’est à Chaillot que fut signée la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme, le 10 décembre 1948.
Développer la « sensibilité », la « créativité », l’« empathie », travailler son aisance à l’oral, trouver les mots percutants : autant de raisons d’encourager ce type de projets, estime Céline Braconnier, la directrice de l’IEP de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, venue les applaudir. Une activité qui a été aussi l’occasion de découvertes. « Avant d’entrer à Sciences Po, je n’avais même pas entendu parler de Chaillot et je n’étais jamais allée au Louvre ni au musée d’Orsay », ajoute la strasbourgeoise Alice Ferber. « Dans le cadre de cette option, nous visitons beaucoup de musées, de théâtres ou de monuments : cela m’a ouvert à un monde dont je ne faisais pas partie auparavant », s’enthousiasme Lucie Breton, autre étudiante, originaire d’Epernay (Marne).
Publicație :Le Monde
« Je ne connaissais rien, c’était humiliant » : le grand malaise de la culture générale
Certains prennent conscience de leurs lacunes pendant les études supérieures, entourés par des camarades au capital social et culturel plus élevé.
A l’occasion du lancement de Mémorable, « Le Monde » publie une série d’articles sur la mémoire et la culture générale.
Premier cours de littérature dans sa prépa toulousaine. Julie (le prénom a été modifié) reste muette. Elle observe ébahie ses camarades prendre la parole et s’exprimer sur l’œuvre étudiée. « Ils m’impressionnaient par leurs connaissances. Devant leurs phrases si bien construites, je me suis dit : “Des gens savent vraiment parler comme ça ?” Les mots qu’ils employaient voulaient dire tout ce que je ressentais et que je n’arrivais pas à nommer. » Julie a grandi dans un petit village, à deux heures de la capitale occitane. Ses parents ont connu, enfants, la grande précarité, et Julie est la première de la famille à arriver jusqu’au bac.
Porté par la dynamique des « trente glorieuses », son père a monté son imprimerie et connu une ascension sociale. Aujourd’hui, la famille vit confortablement mais, à table, on ne parle ni littérature, ni cinéma, ni histoire.
« Le Monde » lance Mémorable,une application pour cultiver sa mémoire et ses connaissances
Quand Julie, bonne élève au lycée, choisit d’aller en prépa littéraire, elle est loin d’imaginer le choc qui sera le sien au contact de ses nouveaux camarades.« Je me suis vite sentie en décalage. Beaucoup venaient de familles de professeurs, ils avaient grandi en écoutant France Inter, étaient allés plusieurs fois au musée et avaient beaucoup de connaissances politiques ou historiques qui m’étaient inconnues. »
« Une très discriminante logique du mimétisme »
De nombreux étudiants ressentent un tel malaise en entrant dans l’enseignement supérieur, lorsqu’ils se confrontent à des jeunes ayant bénéficié, par le biais de leur famille et de leur entourage, d’un important capital social et culturel. Ce sentiment de « manquer de culture générale » culmine lorsque celle-ci fait l’objet d’une épreuve écrite ou orale pour intégrer une grande école, un institut d’études politiques ou un concours administratif.
C’est seulement au début du XXe siècle que la culture générale devient une épreuve de concours – d’abord pour les écoles militaires. Elle départage les candidats sur leur « hauteur de vue et la sûreté de leur jugement », décrivent les chercheurs Charles Coustille et Denis Ramond, dans un article de la revueLe Débat. Les compositions de culture générale se multiplient au milieu du siècle, notamment dans les concours menant à la haute administration, ou dans les écoles de commerce.
Publicație :Le Monde
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