Ca y est, mon université a craqué
À la fac, l’orage gronde. Dans le contexte de la grève, de la réforme des retraites et du projet de loi LPPR, des chargé.e.s de cours prennent la parole.
►https://audioblog.arteradio.com/blog/142440/podcast/142441/ca-y-est-mon-universite-a-craque
#témoignage #ESR #université #fac #précarité #précaires #vacataires #enseignement_supérieur #universités #témoignages #audio #France #salaire #travail #conditions_de_travail #chargés_de_cours
Un reportage audio publié dans le cadre des luttes actuelles contre la nouvelle loi pluriannuelle de programmation de la recherche (#LPPR).
Pour en savoir plus :
Autour de la loi :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/819491
Et les résistances :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/820393
►https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/linvite-des-matins/la-recherche-francaise-en-quete-de-modele
Alors que le gouvernement doit présenter une #loi_de_programmation pluriannuelle_de_la_recherche (#LPPR), de nombreuses voix s’inquiètent de la remise en cause du modèle de la #recherche française.
« À mes collègues scientifiques, je veux dire que le gouvernement a entendu leur appel à réinvestir massivement dans la recherche » : c’est dans une tribune publiée dans Le Monde que la Ministre de l’ #enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l’innovation Frédérique Vidal a tenté de rassurer les acteurs du monde de la recherche scientifique ce lundi.
Le gouvernement finalise actuellement sa loi de programmation pluriannuelle de la recherche et a déjà annoncé une augmentation du budget pour la recherche à 3% du PIB. Mais de nombreux #enseignants-chercheurs demeurent inquiets : aux conditions de travail, jugées de plus en plus difficiles, s’ajoutent les craintes de l’accroissement de la compétition au détriment de la coopération, de la #précarisation des personnels ou encore d’une atteinte à l’indépendance de la recherche.
Pour en parler, nous recevons Olivier Coutard, président de la conférence des présidents de sections du comité national de la recherche scientifique et socio-économiste, chercheur au CNRS et Sylvestre Huet, journaliste spécialisé en #sciences depuis 30 ans, actuellement journaliste indépendant, auteur du blog sur le site du Monde “Sciences ²”.
Ils seront rejoints en seconde partie d’émission par Marie Sonnette, maîtresse de conférences en sociologie à l’Université d’Angers et membre du comité de mobilisation des facs et des labos en #lutte, et Jean Chambaz, président de Sorbonne Université et de la Ligue européenne des #universités de recherche, professeur de biologie cellulaire.
#Sexisme, « #boys_club » et #plafond_de_verre : les #universités suisses continuent de sacrifier les #femmes
Cet article fait partie de notre dossier sur la grève des femmes, publié le 14 juin dernier. Nous le republions à l’occasion de la Journée internationale des femmes et des filles de science qui se tient ce 11 février 2020.
L’université reste un bastion masculin en 2019. Si au niveau bachelor et master, la Suisse atteint la parité – et même une légère majorité de femmes ! –, c’est loin d’être le cas lorsque l’on monte dans la hiérarchie académique. Le pays ne compte que 22,8% de professeures, alors que la Conférence des recteurs avait fixé l’objectif de 25% pour… 2012.
Pourquoi c’est grave. Ce phénomène appelé leaky pipeline représente une immense perte de compétences pour la recherche. Une fuite des cerveaux vers d’autres carrières, en quelque sorte.
Dans un contexte de concurrence féroce pour faire preuve d’excellence et attirer les meilleurs chercheurs, mais aussi d’augmentation de la population estudiantine, et donc des besoins en enseignement, il s’agit pour les universités d’un enjeu majeur.
Les chiffres qui fâchent.
La Suisse comptait 22,8% de professeures en 2017, selon les dernières données disponibles de l’Office fédéral de la statistique.
À titre de comparaison, en Europe, la Roumanie arrive en tête, avec 54,3% en 2016, et Chypre ferme la marche avec 13%. La Suisse se place légèrement en-dessous de la moyenne européenne, qui se situe à 23,7%.
La faible part de professeures varie d’une discipline à l’autre. Elle est particulièrement marquée dans les sciences exactes et naturelles (14,6%), les sciences techniques (15,7%) et les sciences économiques (17,6%).
De grandes différences existent aussi entre les institutions, comme le montre notre graphique. L’Université de Lucerne compte 33,8% de professeures. Elle est suivie par le Graduate Institute de Genève (31,3%) et l’Université de Neuchâtel (28,8%). Les EPF se situent en bas du tableau, avec un taux de 14,4% pour Zurich et de 15,6% pour Lausanne.
Un problème ancien. La prise de conscience ne date pourtant pas d’hier.
Depuis 2000, les universités ont reçu 65 millions de francs de la Confédération pour développer l’égalité des chances entre les hommes et les femmes. S’ajoutent à cela 12 millions supplémentaires pour la période 2017-2020. Ces montants ont par ailleurs été complétés par des sommes au moins équivalentes venant des universités elles-mêmes. De son côté, le FNS dispose aussi d’instruments pour soutenir les femmes qui font carrière dans la recherche.
Les programmes fédéraux ont ancré la problématique dans les universités et permis de prendre des mesures concrètes, comme la création de bureaux de l’égalité, le lancement de programmes de mentorat et de sensibilisation, la présence de délégués à l’égalité dans les commissions de nominations ou encore l’ouverture de crèches.
Pourtant, même si l’on revient de loin – moins de 10% de professeures en 2000 –, force est de constater que les changements sont très lents.
Un épais plafond de verre. Une étude de la chercheuse en psychologie sociale Klea Faniko s’est penchée sur les obstacles à la progression des chercheuses à l’Université de Genève. Elle conclut que les barrières ne viennent pas des femmes elles-mêmes, qui se montrent tout aussi motivées et investies dans leur carrière que les hommes. Les freins se situent donc dans l’environnement.
L’université est profondément imprégnée de préjugés sexistes : blagues sur les compétences des femmes, interpellations de type « ma petite » ou « ma mignonne », parole plus fréquemment coupée dans les réunions, tâches administratives confiées à des assistantes plutôt qu’à des assistants : Ces attitudes dévalorisent les chercheuses et constitue un obstacle à leur progression professionnelle. Klea Faniko commente :
« Dans la mesure où l’université réunit des personnes cultivées, avec un haut niveau de formation, on s’attend à trouver moins de sexisme, de racisme ou d’homophobie que dans le reste de la société, mais ce n’est pas le cas. »
L’université est encore largement un « boys’ club », où les hommes s’entraident davantage. L’étude constate ainsi une disparité de traitement entre les femmes et les hommes de la part de la hiérarchie. Plus les chercheuses avancent dans leur carrière, moins elles se voient soutenues.
Le système académique est hostile envers la maternité. Devenir parent n’a pas le même impact pour les chercheuses que pour les chercheurs. Pour les premières, on considère plus facilement que leurs priorités vont changer et que leur motivation va baisser.
Pourquoi le changement est si lent. Un rapport d’évaluation des programmes fédéraux publié en 2018 par le SEFRI, note que les universités se sont longtemps montrées « très réticentes » à établir des objectifs chiffrés. Les auteurs constatent que les buts fédéraux concernant le nombre de professeures sont restés une indication « très abstraite » au sein des institutions, et les mesures concrètes pour y parvenir « largement floues ».
Julia Nentwich, professeure en psychologie des organisations à l’Université de St-Gall, a étudié les mesures fédérales. Selon elle, il a fallu près de 15 ans pour que les bureaux de l’égalité des universités parviennent à acquérir la légitimité nécessaire pour agir dans les processus nominations, qui étaient historiquement du ressort des facultés. « Il y a très peu de management top-down dans les universités. Pour provoquer des changements, il faut que tout le monde adhère au même discours. »
Même si les directions d’université se montrent pro-active, cela ne suffit souvent pas. L’implémentation des conseils et programmes des bureaux de l’égalité restent dépendants des personnes qui ont le pouvoir de faire changer les choses à l’intérieur des facultés. Et il n’y a pas assez de pression sur ces dernières, indique Manuela Hugentobler, chercheuse de l’Université de Berne à l’origine du « Manifeste académique pour la grève des femmes ». Elle donne un exemple :
« L’Université de Berne a mis en place un guide sur le langage inclusif. Mais ces recommandations ne sont pas vraiment mises en œuvre car, dans les facultés, rares sont les personnes qui y prêtent attention. »
Les mesures mises en place sous l’impulsion de la Confédération ont par ailleurs longtemps consisté à adapter les femmes à une structure masculine, avec des instruments pour démystifier les carrières, des programmes d’encouragement, du mentorat ou des subsides.
Carine Carvalho, déléguée à l’égalité de l’Université de Lausanne :
« On a voulu augmenter les chances des chercheuses d’évoluer dans un système que l’on n’a pas remis en question. Ces mesures ont eu des effets très positifs sur certains parcours individuels, mais ils ne suffisent pas pour atteindre la parité. »
Les délégués à l’égalité des universités ont entamé une importante réflexion sur la précarité des carrières académiques, qui décourage davantage les femmes que les hommes, avec le passage du post-doctorat au premier poste fixe comme enjeu principal.
Dans la même optique, Julia Nentwich, de l’Université de St-Gall, propose une solution radicale :
« Le plus efficace pour réparer le leaky pipeline serait de supprimer les fonctions dans lesquelles il n’y a pas assez de femmes, en l’occurrence celle de professeur ordinaire, et de réorganiser les facultés sans ces royaumes qui concentrent beaucoup de pouvoir et d’argent. »
Dernier point important, l’université dépend aussi du cadre général en Suisse. Le manque de volonté politique à intégrer les femmes dans le marché du travail, caractérisé par l’absence de congé paternité et une pénurie de solutions de garde pour les jeunes enfants, constitue indéniablement un frein.
Les revendications actuelles. De nombreuses chercheuses réclament aujourd’hui des mesures fortes. Dans une lettre ouverte, la Conférence des déléguées à l’égalité auprès des universités et hautes écoles polytechniques demande que chaque université engage au moins 50% de femmes dans les fonctions académiques et que le financement des institutions soit lié à leur performance en matière d’égalité.
Le « Manifeste académique pour la grève des femmes », signé par plus de 1500 scientifiques, comprend 20 demandes. Il exige en premier lieu 50% de nominations de professeures dans toutes les disciplines et 50% de femmes dans les positions dirigeantes jusqu’à obtention de la parité, ainsi que la transparence salariale.
La suite. Dans la stratégie 2021-2024 de Swissuniversities, l’égalité entre hommes et femmes ne figure plus comme programme fédéral à part entière. La thématique sera probablement intégrée à un volet qui porte sur la diversité au sens large, et recevra donc beaucoup moins de financements qu’au cours de ces vingt dernières années.
Plus que jamais, la balle est dans le camp des universités.
▻https://www.heidi.news/articles/egalite-dans-les-universites-pourquoi-la-suisse-n-atteint-pas-ses-objectifs
#inégalités #discrimination #université #Suisse #statistiques #chiffres #hommes
–-> Article paru en juin 2019, republié à l’occasion de la Journée internationale des femmes et des filles de science qui se tient ce 11 février 2020.
sur le #sexisme et le #harcèlement dans les universités suisses, voir aussi :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/644817
#Affiches qui circulent en #Allemagne sur le monde académique...
https://i.imgur.com/gbSdsHN.png 
https://i.imgur.com/PcJQRKm.png 
https://i.imgur.com/kBIxGAE.png 
https://i.imgur.com/Z0eQd7C.png Intéressant : Certaines affiches ont été traduites et adaptées d’affiches qui circulent en France en ce moment...
Notamment celles en lien avec la #novlangue de #Vidal, qui a inventé le mot #coopétition :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/820393#message825279
Et celles qui ont plus de lien avec la #précarité :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/820393#message824187
#internationalisation_de_la_lutte
#résistance #université #universités #précarisation
–—
Ajouté à la métaliste sur les résistances dans le monde universitaire en Europe :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/824281
„Precarious Internationale : solidarity network meeting“ of the Network for Decent Labour in Academia, Berlin, June 5, 2020
Dear all,
many of us have made and continue to make disenchanting experiences, to say the least, in the German academic system. While it markets itself as a world of excellence, liberal egalitarianism, cosmopolitanism, freedom and generosity towards scholars at risk, the reality of its structural labour conditions and culture of ignorance betray this image to be a grotesque misrepresentation. German academia is characterised by an ingrained and almost cultivated lack of consciousness towards multiple forms of discrimination (based on race, class, gender, age, etc.) and by related modalities of exclusion as well as paternalistic and infantilizing norms and practices particularly vis-à-vis international and non-naturalized scholars and students. As a system that has never been as much as confronted with a debate on quotas or human rights, German academia expects everybody to ‘integrate’ into what is essentially a structure normatively built around the ‘white male’ and organised according to steep hierarchies around disciplinary chairs. The consequences are direct dependencies of various kinds and precarious, fixed-term employment structures unparalleled by international comparison.
Many who came here with hopes and expectations have meanwhile withdrawn, tending to pressing political issues in other ways. While very much understandable, this inadvertently strengthens the fragmentation and division among the large class of underprivileged and precarious scholars that the system relies upon. The Network for #Decent_Labour_in_Academia (#Netzwerk_für_Gute_Arbeit_in_der_Wissenschaft, #NGAWiss) has been working for the past three years to publicise and scandalise the miserable employment conditions in German academia and to advocate for structural reforms. Its working group ‘Precarious Internationale’ aims to make intersectional discrimination a central issue of the network’s activism.
As a part of this effort, this workshop wants to bring together scholars, unionists and activists with different histories of mobility and migration to discuss and reflect on the intersection between precarious labour conditions and different forms of discrimination in the German academic system. We want to come together and learn from each other in order to come to a better analysis of the different problems and challenges faced by differently positioned scholars and activists, but also to exchange experiences and knowledges over struggles for academic freedoms and labour conditions in different contexts. The aim is both to position the question of labour in academia within broader societal struggles in Germany and to link it up to related struggles in other countries.
We propose to frame the workshop along two lines of debate and exchange. However, we are very much open to alter and adapt this proposal according to what participants consider urgent and relevant to be discussed!
Critical diversity: As against a neoliberal depoliticised celebration of diversity that follows a calculative logic of added value while blanking out structural inequalities, we want to engage in a critical discussion on the realities of diversity in German academia.Possible questions to be discussed include: what are the effects, limitations and problems of current discourse and practices of diversity? Is it possible – and acceptable – to speak of ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ in the European and especially German context? When does it make sense to speak of ‘migration backgrounds’ to address the issue of underrepresentation of scholars in high academic positions? What are the concrete problems and challenges faced by people with a variety of different migration/mobility histories? What about forms of discrimination affecting people who do not master the German language? And how do these issues intersect with other vectors of discrimination, such as class, age, gender or disability?
Network of solidarity: We want to learn from each other’s struggles and experiences, think through concrete possibilities for solidarity and envision common political actions.How can we connect the activities of scholars, unionists, and activists struggling against precarious labour and different forms of inequality and discrimination in different academic settings? What are the larger political struggles in which these activities are involved? How and what can we learn from each other? What kinds of concrete steps towards mutual assistance could be developed and what common political actions could be envisioned?
Please let us know (alice.bieberstein@hu-berlin.de) by FEBRUARY, 15 2020 whether (1) you would like to participate in this workshop! In your answer, please indicate (2) whether there is a topic or issue of special INTEREST of URGENCY to you that you would want to see addressed in the workshop. Please also let us know (3) whether you would want to join with a specific contribution of any kind (presentation, film, artistic intervention, etc.). We absolutely want to make sure that lack of personal funds does not stand in the way of your participating. Private accommodation can be provided, and we are looking into options of supporting travel expenses. Please do let us know your needs and we’ll get back to you with possibilities.
Contact:
Dr. Alice von Bieberstein
Institut für Europäische Ethnologie
Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
alice.bieberstein@hu-berlin.de
▻https://www.mittelbau.net/call-for-participation-precarious-internationale-solidarity-network-meeti
#Allemagne #université #universités #résistance #précarisation #précarité #excellence #scholars_at_risk #discriminations #paternalisme #exclusion #travail #conditions_de_travail
–-----
Ajouté à la métaliste sur les résistances dans le monde universitaire, et au-delà de la France :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/824281
Une nouvelle génération des #Campus_d'excellence avec les acteurs des territoires
Former aux métiers d’#excellence et de demain dans des secteurs porteurs : c’est l’objectif du dispositif « Campus des métiers et des qualifications d’excellence ». Les 23 premiers locataires des Campus des métiers ont été choisis, le 6 février 2020.
Parcours de formation, des espaces d’#innovation et de vie, avec des possibilités de #mobilité à l’international c’est ce que propose la nouvelle génération de ces Campus d’excellence. Cette initiative se construit avec les acteurs économiques d’un #territoire pour former les jeunes aux #métiers_de_demain.
Le Campus est un lieu de #formation et d’innovation au plus près des #entreprises. Il repose sur le tryptique :
– Soutenir le développement d’une #filière_porteuse_d’avenir ;
– Maintenir des #compétences dans un territoire ;
-Améliorer l’excellence de la #formation.
Chaque campus réunit, à l’échelle d’une région :
– des #établissements_scolaires (#lycées généraux, technologiques et professionnels) ;
– des établissements d’#enseignement_supérieur (#universités, écoles, etc.) ;
– des centres de formation d’apprentis (#CFA) ;
– des organismes de #formation_initiale ou continue (#Greta, etc.) ;
– des #laboratoires_de_recherche ;
– des #entreprises ;
– des associations.
Un financement du #Programme_Investissement_d'Avenir (#PIA) « #Campus_des_métiers » doté de 80 millions d’euros permet de financer la première vague de 20 à 30 projets. Les #subventions du PIA pourront atteindre au maximum 50% des dépenses éligibles du projet, le reste étant pris en charge par les partenaires. Les #partenaires_privés contribuent à hauteur de 30% ce qui garantit leur implication dans le projet.
L’appel à projets reste ouvert jusqu’au 31 juillet 2020 avec deux dernières vagues de sélection les 16 mars et 1er juin 2020.
Les quatre ministres qui portent le projet - Muriel Pénicaud, Jean-Michel Blanquer, Frédéric Vidal et Agnès Pannier-Runacher - étaient réunis pour présenter la première vague des lauréats.
▻https://www.gouvernement.fr/une-nouvelle-generation-des-campus-d-excellence-avec-les-acteurs-des-te
Comme une #baffe... en ce moment de lutte notamment contre la #LPPR : ►https://seenthis.net/messages/820330
#France #enseignement #ESR
Comment réguler la #masse_salariale ? #IGF et #IGAENR préconisent d’agir sur la #structure_d’emploi et le #temps_de_travail
Rapport concerné : rapport non publié de l’IGF et de l’IGAENR (inspection générale de l’administration de l’Éducation nationale et de la Recherche) consacré au « pilotage et [à] la maîtrise de la masse salariale des #universités », daté d’avril 2019.
Quelles sont les marges de manœuvre des universités en matière de pilotage de leur masse salariale ?
C’est à cette question qu’est consacrée une partie d’un rapport IGF/IGAENR d’avril 2019. Plutôt que les #gels_des_postes, la mission préconise de jouer sur la « structure d’emploi » : #repyramidage, modification de la structure des emplois (remplacer un #MCF par un #Prag) mais aussi « modification du rapport #contractuels/#titulaires » sont les trois leviers à actionner, le dernier ayant le mérite d’avoir un impact direct sur le #GVT. Elle invite aussi à « optimiser le #temps_de_travail des personnels ».
Les IG constatent que « l’instrument le plus utilisé, notamment en cas de difficulté financière, est celui du recours au gel pour permettre un #retour_à_l’équilibre financier ». Une mesure à utiliser avec prudence, souligne pourtant la mission, car elle peut « se traduire par une dégradation à court terme de la qualité du service rendu » et avoir un aspect financier réduit du fait du recours aux #heures_complémentaires pour compenser. La mission précise toutefois que « le rapport économique pour un service complet est de un à cinq à l’avantage du recours aux heures complémentaires ».
La mission préconise plutôt de jouer sur la « structure d’emploi », ce qui peut passer par une combinaison de trois mesures :
– un repyramidage : par exemple remplacer deux emplois #Biatss de catégorie B par un emploi de catégorie A.
– une modification de la structure des emplois : remplacer un professeur partant à la retraite par un maître de conférences ou un MCF par un Prag, par exemple.
– une modification du rapport contractuels/titulaires. La mission souligne que « le recours aux contractuels peut permettre une meilleure adaptation des effectifs aux besoins » et que les universités « ont une plus grande maîtrise de leurs situations salariales et de carrière que pour les titulaires dans la mesure où c’est le conseil d’administration qui statue sur les dispositions qui leur sont applicables » (pas d’intervention du #CNU par exemple). Augmenter la proportion d’emplois contractuels dans une université « a pour conséquence de lui donner davantage de leviers pour piloter ses #ressources_humaines, sa masse salariale et son GVT », écrit la mission, qui appelle toutefois à « un certain nombre de précautions », notamment en termes de transformation des #CDD en #CDI. Elle pointe aussi que « le recours excessif à certaines formes de #contractualisation, telles que les #vacations, peut conduire à une dégradation de la #qualité_de_l’enseignement ».
(…)
L’autre #levier mis en avant par la mission pour réguler la masse salariale concerne en effet le pilotage du temps de travail, tant des Biatss que des enseignants. Elle reprend en ce sens les conclusions d’un rapport récent de la Cour des comptes sur le temps de travail des Biatss (►https://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/publications/le-temps-de-travail-des-personnels-non-enseignants-de-lenseignement-superie), y voyant un important gisement d’emplois.
Et projections à l’appui, la mission fait le même constat pour les enseignants : elle montre ainsi que si on alignait les #heures_d’enseignement par enseignant sur la médiane [des universités], cela conduirait à un gain de 529 ETP pour les établissements pluridisciplinaires avec santé et une perte de 115 ETP pour les autres établissements pluridisciplinaires. Si on alignait ce ratio sur le troisième quartile de la catégorie, les gains seraient de 3 019 ETP pour les pluridisciplinaires avec santé et de 414 ETP pour les autres pluridisciplinaires. « Ces chiffres montrent que les choix des établissements en matière de charge d’enseignement ont un impact significatif sur les effectifs enseignants et donc sur la masse salariale et justifient un #pilotage du temps de travail des enseignants », concluent les IG.
Réguler l’offre de formation
Autres mesures « à encourager » selon les IG, celles visant à « réguler l’#offre_de_formation » : plafonnement du quota horaire par étudiant et par formation, définition d’un nombre minimum d’étudiants pour ouvrir une formation, suppression des duplications de formations entre sites, mutualisation d’interventions entre parcours.
▻https://www.aefinfo.fr/acces-depeche/621159
#ESR #éducation_nationale #facs #université #BIATTS #BIATS
Le temps de travail des personnels non-enseignants de l’enseignement supérieur
Dans son rapport de 2015 sur l’autonomie financière des universités, la Cour avait observé que la durée du temps de travail des personnels de bibliothèques, ingénieurs, administratifs, techniques, sociaux et de santé (BIATSS) était largement inférieure à la durée annuelle légale de 1 607 heures. Près de cinq ans après, la Cour constate que rien n’a été entrepris pour remédier aux dérives constatées, que ce soit par le ministère ou par les établissements d’enseignement supérieur. La moyenne des durées effectives de travail relevées lors des 24 derniers contrôles d’établissements s’établit ainsi à 1 462 heures annuelles, soit moins de 32 heures hebdomadaires. Or, il n’existe pas de sujétions particulières permettant de justifier de telles dérogations au régime général. La Cour déplore en outre que la durée du temps de travail ne fasse pas l’objet d’un contrôle réel et sérieux de la part des établissements. Elle formule deux recommandations visant à mettre fin aux irrégularités constatées.
►https://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/publications/le-temps-de-travail-des-personnels-non-enseignants-de-lenseignement-superie
Le rapport en pdf :
Northern Ireland universities to face further strike action
Queen’s University and Ulster University face further strike action from many lecturers and support staff.
University and College Union (UCU) members at both universities previously walked out for eight days in November and December 2019.
The union has now said its members will strike for a further 14 days from Thursday, 20 February.
The action is due to ongoing disputes over pay, workloads and pensions.
As well as Queen’s and Ulster, more than 70 universities across the UK are likely to be affected.
The UCU has 583 members at Ulster University (UU) and 933 members at Queen’s University (QUB).
Turnout in the strike ballot at both Northern Ireland universities was lower than the UK-wide turnout of 53% in the pensions ballot and 49% in the pay and conditions ballot.
Not all UCU members at UU and QUB went on strike in late 2019 but a significant number did, causing some classes and lectures to be cancelled.
The UCU has said its members will take strike action on:
Thursday 20 and Friday 21 February;
from Monday 24 February to Wednesday 26 February;
and from Monday 2 March to Thursday 5 March.
They will then walk out for the entire week beginning Monday, 9 March.
The disputes centre on changes to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), with the union also claiming there has been a failure to improve pay, equality, rates of casual employment and workloads.
The UCU general secretary Jo Grady also warned that it will carry out a further ballot if the dispute is not resolved to allow its members to take further strike action throughout 2020.
“If universities want to avoid further disruption they need to deal with rising pension costs, and address the problems over pay and conditions,” she said.
’We have been clear from the outset that we would take serious and sustained industrial action if that was what was needed."
Academics at QUB and UU also took part in a previous strike over pension changes in 2018.
▻https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-51364871
#Irlande_du_Nord #université #grève #universités #résistance
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Teachers’ strike: ‘We have to work part-time jobs to get by’
Thousands of teachers are set to strike on Tuesday to protest over two-tier payscales
Tara Ní Mhóráin (29), a secondary school teacher, works a part-time job in order to make ends meet. So, too, do the two other teachers she shares a house with in Co Louth.
All are on lower pay scales which were introduced in 2011 to cut public spending.
“It’s something which is completely foreign for older teachers,” Ní Mhóráin says. “I do some part-time lecturing work in Dublin City University. My other teaching friends work in shops, babysitting or administration during the evenings or weekends. And we all work during the summer. We have to,” she says.
By her calculation, she has lost out on about €37,500 as a result of being on a lower pay scale since she started teaching in 2014. For those hired closer to 2011, she says, the figure is about €50,000.
“At my school, most teachers are on the lower scale. You see some older colleagues who might be able to buy a new car or go somewhere nice on holidays . . . that feels so out of reach for many of us, even though we’re in the classroom next door doing the same job. It’s a bitter pill to swallow,” she says.
Even though she’s classified as a “new entrant teacher”, many have been teaching close to a decade now.
“We have waited long enough for it to end . . . many of us have had to put life decisions off, such as having children, getting married. Ending two-tier pay has been a waiting game and it’s driving people from teaching,” she says.
Ní Mhóráin says she loves her job and does not want to be on strike on Tuesday. But, she says, it is vitally important that the next government ends pay inequality swiftly. Otherwise, teachers may consider leaving the profession.
“It makes you wonder do you want to teach for the rest of your life. I used to work as a translator with the European Commission. It wasn’t work I enjoyed as much, but it has more financial benefits.”
While the political parties have all pledged to end pay inequality, Ní Mhóráin says many of the promises are “wishy washy”.
“We want an end date. We want to know when can we get on with the rest of our lives,” she says.
▻https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/teachers-strike-we-have-to-work-part-time-jobs-to-get-by-1.4159458
Outre Manche 74 universités entrent en grève en février et en mars
Soixante-quatorze universités britanniques seront touchées par 14 jours de grève en février et en mars, selon le communiqué de UCU aujourd’hui. La grève commencera le jeudi 20 février et prendra de l’ampleur chaque semaine jusqu’à culminer en un arrêt total du travail du lundi 9 au mardi 13 mars.
Le conflit porte sur la viabilité financière du système de retraites Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) et de l’accroissement de son coût pour ses membres, et sur l’échec des universités à n universitieséchec des universités à faire des améliorations significatives sur la rémunérations, leur équiités, la flexibilité et la charge de travail. Voici les jours de grève prévus :
Semaine 1 – Jeudi 20 & vendredi 21 février
Semaine 2 – lundi 24, mardi 25 & mercredi 26 février
Semaine 3 – lundi 2, mardi 3, mercredi 4 & jeudi 5 mars
Semaine 4 – lundi 9, mardi 10, merciredi 11, jeudi 12 & vendredi 13 mars
Les membres de UCU ont cessé le travail huit jours en novembre et décembre l’an passé affectant ainsi un million d’étudiant⋅es. La prochaine vague touchera 14 autres universités, soit 200 000 étudiant⋅es supplémentaires, puisque UCU davantage de sections UCU ont atteint les 50% de participation légalement requis pour entrer en grève.
Le syndicat a également averti qu’il consulterait ses membres après la vague de grèves si les conflits ne trouvaient pas de solution, afin de s’assurer que ses sections puissent faire grève jusqu’à la fin de l’année universitaire. Les mandats de grève ont seulement une validité de six mois ; aussi les sections qui ont cesser le travail en novembre doivent faire renouveler le mandat reçu pour être autorisé à faire grève après avril.
En plus des jours de grève, les membres syndicqués sont invités à pratique la « grève du zèle ». Cela implique de actions comme travailler selon les termes exacts du contrat, ne pas assurer le travail de collègues absents et refuser de remplacer les cours supprimés à cause de la grève.
La secrétaire générale de UCU Jo Grady déclaire : « Nous avons vu plus de membres soutenir les grèves depuis la moblisation de l’hiver derner et cette nouvelle vague de grève va affecter plus d’universités et d’étudiants. Si les universités veulent éviter davantage de perturbation, il faut qu’elles parviennent à un accord sur l’accroissement du coût des retraite et s’affrontent aux problèmes des rémunérations et des conditions de travail ».
« Nous avons été clairs dès le départ sur le fait que nous allions organiser une grève ferme et durable si c’est de ça qu’il était besoin. En plus des grèves du mois à venir, nous allons consulter nos membres pour nous assurer que nous disposons d’un mandat renouvelé pour couvrir le reste de l’année universitaire, si ces conflits ne trouvent pas de résolution satisfaisante ».
Universities affectées par la grève
Deux conflits (47) :
1. Aston University
2. Bangor University
3. Cardiff University
4. University of Durham
5. Heriot-Watt University
6. Loughborough University
7. Newcastle University
8. The Open University
9. The University of Bath
10. The University of Dundee
11. The University of Leeds
12. The University of Manchester
13. The University of Sheffield
14. University of Nottingham
15. The University of Stirling
16. University College London
17. The University of Birmingham
18. The University of Bradford
19. The University of Bristol
20. The University of Cambridge
21. The University of Edinburgh
22. The University of Exeter
23. The University of Essex
24. The University of Glasgow
25. The University of Lancaster
26. The University of Leicester
27. City University
28. Goldsmiths College
29. Queen Mary University of London
30. Royal Holloway
31. The University of Reading
32. The University of Southampton
33. The University of St Andrews
34. Courtauld Institute of Art
35. The University of Strathclyde
36. The University of Wales
37. The University of Warwick
38. The University of York
39. The University of Liverpool
40. The University of Sussex
41. The University of Aberdeen
42. The University of Ulster
43. Queen’s University Belfast
44. Birkbeck College, University of London
45. SOAS, University of London
46. The University of Oxford
47. The University of East Anglia
Pour les rémunérations et les conditions de travail seulement (22) :
1. Bishop Grosseteste University
2. Bournemouth University
3. Edge Hill University
4. Glasgow Caledonian University
5. Glasgow School of Art
6. Liverpool Hope University
7. Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts
8. Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh
9. St Mary’s University College, Belfast
10. Roehampton University
11. Sheffield Hallam University
12. The University of Brighton
13. The University of Kent
14. Bath Spa University
15. Royal College of Art
16. University of Huddersfield
17. University of Winchester
18. University of East London
19. Leeds Trinity University
20. UAL London College of Arts
21. De Montfort University
22. University of Greenwich
Contre la réforme des retraites USS seulement (5) :
1. Scottish Association of Marine Science
2. Institute for Development Studies
3. Keele University
4. King’s College London
5. Imperial College London
▻https://academia.hypotheses.org/10910
#université #Angleterre #UK #grève #résistance #universités
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Senior UK academics protest over pay and working conditions
Professors refuse to act as external examiners, potentially disrupting students’ results.
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f577f9af03596a66eddb4bc2cde72cec8d6037df/0_45_1400_840/master/1400.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=d6a9abbc77ccb62944d311
Senior academics are refusing to act as external examiners – a vital part of higher education assessments – in protest at pay and working conditions in UK universities, and are urging colleagues to join them, potentially disrupting this year’s results for students.
British universities rely on external examiners to independently validate the results of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, meaning that mass resignations would cause headaches for universities in the setting and marking of exams.
A letter to the Guardian signed by 29 professors said they were resigning as external examiners and refusing to take on new contracts because of pension cuts and insecure contracts throughout the sector, as well as gender and ethnicity pay gaps, heavy workloads and stress.
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“We are refusing to act as external examiners because although we believe that this role is crucial in underpinning the quality of education provided to students, so too is the need to provide fair pay, pensions and job security for those who work in universities,” the letter states.
“It is long past time for universities to address these festering problems, and we believe we have a responsibility to staff at the start of their careers to make a stand now. Please join us by resigning external examiner posts and refusing to take on new contracts until universities take action to address these issues.”
Phil Taylor, a professor of work and employment at the University of Strathclyde, said he had signed the letter because he was “fed up” with universities treating their staff with contempt.
“Someone starting now is likely to have to deal with one insecure contract after another, face cuts in their pension, spiralling workloads, unrelenting pressure, soaring stress levels and pay inequality. Universities must start to value staff more or they will lose what little goodwill that is left,” he said.
Another signatory, Natalie Fenton, a professor of media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, said British universities boasted about their global reputation while treating staff as second-class citizens.
“It is really important that senior academics on established contracts make a stand in support of less fortunate colleagues. I will be refusing any invitations to act as external examiner for degree courses until universities address these issues,” Fenton said.
External examiners are experienced academics such as professors or senior lecturers, who give independent assurance that a university’s assessment system is fair and help to maintain rigorous academic standards.
Thousands of UK academics ’treated as second-class citizens’
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The external examination boycott comes during industrial disputes at many British universities, with the University and College Union leading a strike at 60 institutions last year and more strike ballots being held this month.
“External examiners resigning their positions, and refusing to take up new ones, are very serious steps and demonstrate the huge levels of frustration that exist,” said Jo Grady, the UCU general secretary.
“External examiners are vitally important both to protecting educational standards and to the sector’s academic reputation but they want to support colleagues who face pension cuts, insecure contracts, spiralling workloads and pay inequality.
“Universities must now recognise the strength of feeling that exists across the workforce and make substantial changes in the way they treat staff or they will undoubtedly face not just further industrial action, but also more withdrawals of cooperation.”
A spokesperson for the Universities and Colleges Employers Association said the protest “does not seem to reflect accurately the issues” in the current industrial disputes.
“Many universities have also been in dialogue with their unions over the wider employment issues that have been packaged in to one of these disputes and it is wrong to assert that there is any unwillingness within universities to discuss and address these issues,” the association said.
A spokesperson for the industry body Universities UK said: “It is right that university staff should expect good working conditions, fair pay and an attractive pension. This is what universities are striving to provide.”
▻https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jan/22/senior-uk-academics-protest-over-pay-and-working-conditions
Picket Line Perspectives: UCU pickets across the UK
Sixty universities across the UK are taking part in the current UCU strike action over pay, pensions, and poor working conditions. On day 4 of the 8-day strike, six striking historians give us the view from picket lines across the country.
Royal Holloway, University of London
Emily Manktelow – Senior Lecturer in Colonial and Global History
One of the nice things about Royal Holloway’s big Founder’s Building clock is that you can arrive “on the stroke” of things. As such, I arrived on the stroke of 8am Monday morning to join the picket lines of the Egham Campus. The rain was both mizzling and persistent, but I like to think the picket I was on was buoyed by the presence of my dog Teddy, one of the many #dogsonpicketlines up and down the country that morning. Not being a fan of the rain, his big brown eyes really got across the pathos of inequality, low pay and casualisation. Standing at the pedestrian crossing gate opposite student halls, we got a lot of support from students, some encouraging car honks and a round of applause from a passing nurse. We also got shouted at by a man leaning out of his van at the traffic lights. “Get a f***ing education”, he yelled with somewhat pleasing irony. I guess he could have been saying “Give a f***ing education’, but that seems unlikely.
On the picket line the main talk was of equality: fair pay and casualisation were definitely the issues that resonated most with staff. Whereas during the last strikes the focus was very-much on the pension cuts, this time around there was a certain amount of discomfort with our ‘USS Pension Strike’ signs. This discomfort resonates more widely with the dominance on social media of the second part of the industrial action ballot: pay and working conditions. While RHUL is proud of its roots in female education – indeed, the sports teams’ colours are the suffragette colours and our new library is in the brand-new Emily Wilding Davison building – we have the 7th worst gender pay gap in the sector (24.9%). Our Surrey campus, meanwhile, is much too white for its proximity to Hounslow, Acton and Staines. As staff members and departments these are issues we have been trying to face with student-led BAME initiatives and projects to diversify our curriculum, but both the national and local picture remain alarming at best, and indicting at worst. The national gender pay gap is 15% (2018) while the ethnic minority pay gap in Russell Group institutions is an astonishing 26% (2018). Closer to home for we historians the Royal Historical Society’s ‘Race, Ethnicity and Equality Report’ found that only 11% of history students nationwide are from BAME backgrounds and that 96.1% of university historians are white.
Casualisation, meanwhile, is also stark. RHUL relies upon 62% casualised labour. Nationally the figure stands at 68% with many institutions even higher. At last year’s Modern British Studies Conference forum on early career casualisation I was struck not only by the devastating figures, but even more so by the feeling of ECRs on the panel that their work wasn’t valued: that their teaching was underpaid and unstable, and even more so that their research was considered pointless or trivial. This really felt like a punch in the gut, and in a stupidly tone-deaf and rambling question I prattled on about imposter syndrome without really interacting with the structural issues that these academics were so eloquently describing. Yes, we all have moments of feeling that we don’t belong. These young colleagues were being both told and shown that they didn’t by university structures and leaderships that relied upon their work at the same time as marginalising their existence. This is deeply shameful, and absolutely worth striking for.
I don’t know if these issues have got worse since the last strikes, but I do know that their importance has magnified. Colleagues and I have been trying to work out why that is. Our suggestions are undoubtedly only part of the wider picture, but tended to circle around greater visibility through social media and more attention to mental health issues in academia (particularly after the tragic death of Dr Malcolm Anderson at Cardiff University earlier this year). Moreover, for me at least, the last round of strikes burnt up my goodwill towards universities as institutions. I love my job, and I am extremely fortunate to be one of the lucky ones in a permanent position. I joined RHUL in August 2018 and have been extremely happy there so far, with great colleagues, a vibrant department, and enthusiastic and engaged students. But in 2018 university leaderships across the country certainly demonstrated that we are only numbers on a spreadsheet in the corridors of power. Our goodwill is lost in a vacuum of number-crunching, pound signs and recruitment figures.
Universities rely on our commitment to research and teaching in order to exploit us. They rely on our gratitude for having a job to overwork us. They rely on our commitment to get the job done to cut our pay by nearly 20% in real terms since 2009. They rely on casualised staff who are chronically underpaid, live in a world of instability and insecurity every day, and internalise the sector’s exploitation as a narrative of insufficiency. The money is there: for pensions, for fractional and permanent contracts, for redressing the pay gaps and investing in eradicating student attainment gaps. We don’t need new halls charging exorbitant rent to already over-squeezed students. We don’t need recruitment targets, TEFs, REFs and KEFs. We need equality, security, fair workloads and fair pay. Is that so much to ask?
University of Cambridge
George Morris – PhD Student in History
As in the last strike, the solidarity shown by undergraduate students, and the presence of postgrads on the picket lines, has been of huge value, not just in boosting numbers and morale – and providing sustenance in the form of tea and cake – but in showing the strength of feeling, and the deep care and support, on which the university runs. The practical solidarity shown between staff and students (and, here in Cambridge, a visiting Billy Bragg) is an expression of more everyday solidarities, which function despite the pressure of poor working conditions. If it seems like the strike offers an alternative idea of the university, it is because of this; people gathering, meeting, and talking in ways we don’t have time to otherwise.
At many universities, students have been misleadingly told that they aren’t allowed to join the picket lines. The fact is that staff and students care about one another more than VCs care about either. Despite the cynical co-option of a language of care, more or less direct threats to discipline students, particularly those who might fall fowl of visa restrictions, suggest the limits of management’s feeling for students affected by the strike.
Though the issues at dispute have now broadened, this in basically a continuation of the last wave of strike action, the longest in the history of British universities. The strike proved to be effective, to have the support of students, and to have highlighted working conditions in a sector too easily dismissed by observers as a world of ivory towers. Though the methods of the dispute are traditional ones – pickets, student occupations, Billy Bragg – the realities of university employment differ radically from the workplaces for which such tactics were devised. This doesn’t mean that universities are out of touch; on the contrary, these dispersed institutions, in which employees are expected to work for love not money, have much in common with seemingly very different occupations in contemporary Britain.
Everybody on the picket lines is fighting for pensions, fair pay and an end to precarity. But, as was the case last time, they’re fighting for the future of universities too. For those of us who are doing graduate work, and who look ahead to a future of precarious employment, it may well be that our biggest ‘contribution to the field’ is the fight for the future of higher education.
University of Bristol
Will Pooley – Lecturer in Modern European History
This is What Winning Looks Like
I’m fortunate to work with many colleagues who recognize the importance of the union, and of this strike.
But before the strike began, I spoke to several colleagues who weren’t members, and weren’t planning to join us. One of them told me, ‘I don’t think we can win this fight.’
I’ve been thinking a lot about this on the first few days on the picket.
No one is pretending that the issues are simple. Different union branches are on strike on either one of two different grounds – pensions and pay – or on both. The ins and outs of the pension dispute are hard even for staff to understand, let alone members of the public and students. And the pay dispute is not just about stagnating pay or pay devaluation, but also covers pay inequality, job insecurity, and rising workloads.
Resolutions to all of these disputes are unlikely to be simple or quick. Precarious employment practices and unsafe workloads are so ingrained in how modern universities work that undoing them is going to take sustained work over the long term.
But if victory is a process, not a moment, then there are signs that we are already winning.
Winning is recognition in national media coverage that the current system is broken.
Winning is the incredible support our students have shown us.
Winning is our democratically-elected representatives coming down to the pickets to hear directly from staff about the strike.
Winning is the creativity and camaraderie of the picket.
Those of us who were also on strike in 2018 remember how uplifting it was to just spend time talking to our colleagues and students. In our current broken system, who has time for that?
Winning is the Vice-Chancellor of our university coming out on to the pickets and the marches to speak to staff, and even to listen to our concerns. (When I heard him, he was being roundly criticised by hourly-paid teachers about their working conditions.)
And winning is the growing group of Vice-Chancellors speaking out to support greater pension contributions from employers.
Of course the fight is not over.
Vice-Chancellors talking to picketers, or even publicly declaring their sympathy is not the same as Vice-Chancellors taking concrete steps to address our concerns. Some of the fixes could be a lot faster than university ‘leaders’ sometimes pretend. I’d like to see my own employer adopt the approach to pay gaps championed by the University of Essex. To close their gender pay gap among professors, they simply increased all female professors’ pay.
We can hope, can’t we? My overwhelming memory of the 2018 strikes is anger. But what I’d like to say to my pessimist colleague – and indeed to any other colleagues who have not yet joined – is something about how hope is replacing my anger.
We are slowly winning this, and it’s never too late to join us.
University of Edinburgh
Fraser Raeburn – Lecturer in Modern European History
Last time around, striking felt liberating. The picket line seemed to be the first space capable of overcoming the atomisation of academic life, a place where conversations could happen spontaneously, unhurriedly and across subject borders and hierarchies, the kinds of conversations most of us became academics to have. The result was a sense of solidarity that felt exhilaratingly unfamiliar, an emotional high that pushed people through a long series of strikes to their successful conclusion.
This time, that exhilaration seems to be gone. Not because there are fewer people out, or because there is no solidarity to be found – quite the contrary. Part of the reason, inevitably, is the sheer awfulness of Edinburgh’s November weather, which has had a quite literal numbing effect. I also suspect that the novelty for most participants has worn off somewhat – the sense of giddy surprise at the power of the picket as a human space was never going to be fully recaptured. Perhaps above all though, we are all tired. This has been a long, difficult semester, perhaps only incrementally more difficult than the last one (which was only a little more difficult than the one before) but we are all reaching or approaching the end of our tethers. We are simply exhausted.
This exhaustion is why we’re striking. Many of us – particularly those of us on temporary, precarious contracts – feel like we’re being pushed to breaking point, working unsustainable hours, pushing through illness and lack of sleep to deliver teaching on a scale that seemed unimaginable a generation ago. Exhaustion, on this picket line, is not weakness, it is determination: we can’t go on like this, and the only option we have left is to challenge the system itself.
Pensions were a strong rallying point, as they affected our collective futures so tangibly, and the deal being offered was so transparently, unnecessarily cruel. It became clear during that strike, however, that this was the tip of the iceberg when it came to structural issues in UK academia. The ambition of this strike is, well, striking. We are attempting not just to address the lingering issue of pensions, but the much wider problems of workload, precarity and the pay gaps along the lines of gender, race and disability.
These are issues that require different conversations than last time around. Much of the debate around pensions was technical – what can really be afforded, how to calculate contributions and risk, what assumptions are built into the models. This time, we need to communicate truths that are more personal and emotional, lifting the curtain not just on what is happening behind the scenes of our universities, but what is happening behind the facades we put up in the classroom as we perform our roles as enthusiastic, engaged and energetic teachers. These are facades we’ve often built up just a little too well – we are good at our jobs, after all – but if we want students to understand why we’re striking, they need to come down.
University of Cambridge
Elly Robson, Research Fellow
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The mood on the pickets in Cambridge has been buoyant – bolstered further by celebrity visits from Ai Weiwei and Billy Bragg. No one wants to be on strike, but there is widespread recognition among students and staff that the future of higher education is at stake. The tripling of tuition fees under the Lib Dem-Tory government in 2009 accelerated a restructuring of the university sector along highly marketised lines. This same trend has profoundly degraded the conditions, pay, and pensions of workers in the university – those whose labour is the very lifeblood of these institutions. This strike poses the question of who and what the university is for. It also widens the terms of the struggle to highlight how the young and precarious, women, BME and disabled academics and staff are hit hardest by pay freezes, short-term and zero-hours contracts, and escalating workloads.
What cabinet ministers, university managers and pension actuarialists failed to factor into their calculations was the potential for these shared struggles to converge. This week, I have watched horizontal solidarities, forged in the 2018 strikes, deepen and grow on the picket lines in Cambridge. The picket is a radical pedagogical space, in which learning takes unexpected forms and militates against the hierarchies of the classroom. We stand to learn a huge deal from the energy, organisation and vision of the students supporting the strike. The strike doesn’t just demand that “another university is possible”, but brings it into being at the level of practice: in tea-runs and teach-outs, creative placards and the political education of collective action. And there is so much that can be brought back into, and enrich, the classroom from this shared experience. Most strikingly, as Billy Bragg reminded our large rally yesterday, activism is the antidote to cynicism. Without it, we are lost.
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University of Manchester
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Misha Ewen – Research Fellow in Political Economy
I joined the University of Manchester last year and this is my first experience of the picket line. What I’ve witnessed so far is solidarity. Solidarity between students and staff, with students also recognising that the casualisation of academic labour impacts the education that they receive. With the rise in tuition fees, it seems to me that students are also frustrated with the increasing marketisation of university education, and with a general election looming it feels like both on and off the picket line there’s a chance for real change.
I also see the strike as an opportunity to educate students about the realities of academic labour, pay and conditions: some academic staff, who teach their courses and supervise their dissertations, are on precarious contracts, might not receive the same pay as colleagues doing equivalent work, and do work (including teaching) that is not in their contracts and goes unpaid. In this highly competitive job market, Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are often made to feel that they should be grateful for any employment and experience that strengthens their CVs, even when the conditions they face are unethical and exploitative. So, for me, fighting for fairer pay and conditions is deeply personal. I’m proud to say that over the past two days senior staff, ECRs and students have stood side-by-side in the rain (it’s Manchester, what did we expect?), but it hasn’t dampened the feeling that we’re all in this together.
▻http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/picket-line-perspectives-ucu-pickets-across-the-uk
University employers say union demands on pay are unaffordable
Employers appeal to union to go back to members with latest revised offer in hope of averting strikes
Union demands on pensions, pay and conditions are unaffordable and will put vulnerable institutions that are already in deficit at even greater risk, university employers have said.
Speaking before strike action planned for this week on 74 campuses across the UK, the employers said many institutions that had already reported shortfalls were being asked to go beyond what they could afford to meet union demands.
They appealed to the University and College Union, which represents lecturers, librarians, technicians and other academic staff, to go back to their membership with the latest revised offer in the hope of breaking the deadlock between the two sides.
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UCU members are due to go out on strike on Thursday for the first of 14 days of industrial action in what is being described as the largest wave of strikes ever seen on UK campuses. It is expected to impact on more than a million students, many of whom are now veterans of university industrial action.
It is the third time higher education staff have taken industrial action since 2018, most recently before Christmas when 40,000 staff at 60 universities went out on strike for eight days over the same issues. Staff at a further 14 universities subsequently voted in favour of industrial action after being re-balloted by the UCU, taking the total number of institutions up to 74.
Mark E Smith, vice-chancellor of the University of Southampton and chair of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) said employers had moved a long way to meet the demands of union members, particularly on casualisation, gender pay and workload.
“We know that in many institutions they are at the edge – or beyond – what they can really afford. If you look at the number of institutions that have reported deficits this year, it’s a very difficult position for them.”
Universities pay more than half of their overall income on staff costs. “Therefore if your major cost is inflating further, the logical conclusion is those institutions which are under financial pressure will be under increasing pressure,” said Smith. “I would not want to be as alarmist as to say some will go under, however you can join the dots up and see where the logical conclusion of that lies.”
Smith called on the UCU to go back to their members with the detail of the final offer.
“The employers have moved a long way on this, but according to the negotiating team of the union it’s not enough, but that’s their view,” he said. “We don’t know what their members think.”
Students, meanwhile, are becoming increasingly concerned about the impact on their studies, with many launching petitions urging universities to address what they see as legitimate staff concerns and others demanding compensation for lost tuition.
A UCU spokesperson said: “The reason staff are walking out and education is being disrupted from Thursday is because universities have failed to move the conversation forward and address the concerns of staff.”
▻https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/feb/18/university-employers-union-pay-demands
The Senior Management Survey: auditing the toxic university
Our thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed seven major themes:
Dominance and brutality of metrics
Excessive workload
Governance and accountability
Perpetual change and loss of institutional memory
Vanity projects
The silenced academic
Higher education work as a mental health hazard
▻https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/02/17/the-senior-management-survey-auditing-the-toxic-university
En 2021:
UK university staff back strikes over pay and conditions
►https://seenthis.net/messages/935584
Les #indicateurs de l’UGA :
- très bien dotée, avec des ressources en nette augmentation,
– un bon #taux_d'encadrement, mais avec une des plus forte baisse de France,
– et un taux de titularité bas et qui s’écroule.
▻https://twitter.com/JulienGossa/status/1219750402821885958?s=03
#Université_Grenoble_Alpes #UGA #université #ressources #dotation #comparaison #universités #France #précarisation #statistiques #chiffres
The University and Social Justice
Edited by Aziz Choudry, Salim Vally, Pluto Press, février 2020
▻https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745340685/the-university-and-social-justice
Table des matières:
1. Studies in Struggle: Movements for Education and Social Justice - Aziz Choudry (McGill Univ., Canada) and Salim Vally (Univ. of Johannesburg, South Africa)
2. The Trajectory of the 2010 Student Movement in the UK: From Student Activism to Strikes - Jamie Woodcock (Univ. of Oxford, UK)
3. Insurgent Subjects: Student Politics, Education, and Dissent in India - Prem Kumar Vijayan (Delhi Univ., India)
4. Neoliberalism, National Security and Academic Knowledge Production in Turkey - Gülden Özcan (Univ. of Lethbridge, Canada)
5. ’Nous’ Who? Racialized Social Relations and Quebec Student Movement Politics - Rosalind Hampton (Univ. of Toronto, Canada)
6. Learning from Chile’s Student Movement: Youth Organising and Neoliberal Reaction - Javier Campos-Martinez (Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst, USA) and Dayana Olavarria (Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst, USA)
7. Resisting the US Corporate University: Palestine, Zionism and Campus Politics - Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi (San Francisco State Univ., USA) and Saliem Shehadeh (Univ. of California)
8. The Palestinian Student Movement and the Dialectic of Palestinian Liberation and Class Struggles - Lena Meari (Birzeit Univ., Palestine) and Rula Abu-Duhou (Birzeit Univ., Palestine)
9. The New Student Movements in Mexico in the 21st Century: #YoSoy132, Ayotzinapa and #TodosSomosPolitecnico - Alma Maldonado-Maldonado (Center for Advanced Research, Mexico) and Vania Bañuelos Astorga (CREFAL, Mexico)
10. How Did They Fight?: French Student Movements in the Late 2000s and Their Contentious Repertoire - Julie Le Mazier (Pantheon-Sorbonne Univ., France)
11. The Mustfall Mo(ve)ments and ’Publica[c]tion’: Reflections on Collective Knowledge Production in South Africa - Asher Gamedze (cultural worker, South Africa) and Leigh-Ann Naidoo (Univ. of Cape Town, South Africa)
12. Revolutionary Vanguard No More?: The Student Movement and the Struggle for Education and Social Justice in Nigeria - Rhoda Nanre Nafziger (Pennsylvania State Univ., USA) and Krystal Strong (Pennsylvania State Univ., USA)
13. Postcolonial versus Transformative Education in the University of Philippines - Sarah Raymundo (Univ. of the Philippines-Diliman, Philippines) and Karlo Mikhail I. Mongaya (Univ. of the Philippines-Diliman, Philippines)
#Universités #Mouvement_social #Luttes #Education #Justice #Livre
Donald Trump signe un décret controversé pour élargir la définition de l’antisémitisme sur les campus
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/12/12/donald-trump-signe-un-decret-controverse-pour-elargir-la-definition-de-l-ant
Alors que le décret présidentiel vise à défendre les étudiants juifs, les détracteurs de Donald Trump dénoncent une atteinte à la liberté d’expression.
Le président américain se retrouve au cœur d’une nouvelle controverse. Donald Trump a signé, mercredi 11 décembre, un décret visant à lutter contre l’antisémitisme sur les campus américains. Ce texte élargit la définition de l’antisémitisme utilisée par le ministère de l’éducation lorsqu’il fait appliquer la loi sur les droits civiques de 1964. Il ordonne en particulier d’utiliser la définition de l’antisémitisme donnée par l’Alliance internationale pour la mémoire de l’Holocauste (IHRA).
« C’est notre message aux universités : si vous voulez bénéficier des énormes sommes que vous recevez chaque année de la part de l’Etat fédéral, vous devez rejeter l’antisémitisme », a déclaré M. Trump à l’occasion d’une cérémonie à la Maison Blanche pour célébrer Hanouka, la fête des lumières. Avec ce décret, Donald Trump « défend les étudiants juifs » et « indique clairement que l’antisémitisme ne sera pas toléré », a insisté son gendre et conseiller Jared Kushner dans une tribune publiée dans le New York Times.
Mais des défenseurs de la liberté d’expression redoutent qu’une définition trop large et trop vague de l’antisémitisme soit utilisée pour interdire tous les propos critiques envers la politique du gouvernement israélien.
Pour Jeremy Ben-Ami, président de l’organisation progressiste juive J-Street, le décret présidentiel « semble moins destiné à combattre l’antisémitisme qu’à limiter la liberté d’expression et sévir sur les campus contre les critiques visant Israël ».
On appréciera le chapeau totalement délirant de l’article qui prend à son compte sans aucune distance les propos de J. Kushner et renvoie aux « détracteurs de Donald Trump » la critique du décret…
Au passage, la formulation exacte du décret, comme celle votée il y a 10 jours par l’Assemblée nationale (►https://seenthis.net/messages/813982 ), n’inscrit pas la définition non-legally binding de l’IHRA dans la loi , mais invite les juges à en tenir compte ainsi que des exemples fournis.
Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism | The White House
▻https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-combating-anti-semitism
Sec. 2. Ensuring Robust Enforcement of Title VI. (a) In enforcing Title VI, and identifying evidence of discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, all executive departments and agencies (agencies) charged with enforcing Title VI shall consider the following:
(i) the non-legally binding working definition of anti Semitism adopted on May 26, 2016, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which states, “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities”; and
(ii) the “Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism” identified by the IHRA, to the extent that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent.
Le décret de Trump sur l’antisémitisme suscite des réactions mitigées de la communauté juive
Amir Tibon, Haaretz, le 11 décembre 2019
▻http://www.france-palestine.org/Le-decret-de-Trump-sur-l-antisemitisme-suscite-des-reactions-mitig
More academics and students have mental health problems than ever before
In the past few years, a lot of attention has been devoted to mental health on university campuses. Primarily explored from the perspective of students, poor mental health has been reported widely all around the world – it seems university students are not mentally well.
Studies show a large proportion of students experience high levels of depressive symptoms. In the UK, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Students – a forum established for MPs and their peers to discuss issues that affect students in higher education – found 33% of students had experienced suicidal thoughts in the past academic year.
Poor mental health at university is a big problem, not only because it affects how students learn, but because it also impacts whether they actually finish their degrees. Ultimately, symptoms of poor mental health affect the career potential and overall lives of students greatly.
Most research has pointed to challenges caused by the transition from high school to university life, coursework deadlines, exams and financial difficulties.
Helping students
Recent research in the UK has shown that university students have a limited understanding of mental health issues and are hesitant to seek support. Administrators have noted the high prevalence of poor mental health and low levels of mental health literacy of students.
Across the UK, universities have taken different approaches to raising awareness of mental health disorders and addressing stigma associated with poor mental health.
Posters, websites and apps have sprung up in an effort to get students to seek care, and to encourage them to visit campus well-being clinics.
What about academics?
But it seems the poor mental health of academics has received comparatively little attention. This is concerning because research has shown that many academic staff are stressed and at risk of burnout. Like students, academics are not mentally well.
One recent survey found that 43% of academic staff exhibited symptoms of at least a mild mental disorder. This is nearly twice the prevalence of mental disorders compared with the general population. Primarily to blame are the increased workloads of academics and demands to publish and obtain external revenue.
High levels of poor mental health have a profound impact on the professional competence and productivity of academics, affecting administrative, teaching and research quality – as well as impairing communication and work relationships among staff. Of course, poor mental health also affects the personal lives of these individuals.
Silent stigma
But academic staff have far fewer options for well-being support than students. Most universities will offer their staff the chance to see an occupational health nurse or contact an employee assistance program by telephone – but information about both services is limited and often difficult to find. And both options direct staff to services outside the university campus.
With limited, hard to find services and the stigma that surrounds poor mental health, it is unsurprising that only 6.7% of UK academic staff have ever disclosed a mental health condition. In a sense then, a culture of “silence of mental health issues within university environments” exists.
It is clear that more must be done to help address the poor mental health of academics. Meaningful structural changes are needed to address the underlying factors associated with poor mental health, like job security, workload and pay. Though these changes will not be easy or come quickly. Unfortunately, in the current political climate, and with the high costs of education, governments are under pressure to satisfy students and their parents with rubrics of excellence – putting further stress on academics.
Changing attitudes
Improving mental health literacy among academics – including symptom identification, self-care practices (such as engaging in physical activity), and knowing where to seek support – is one potential strategy. Like the work being done with students, academics need information about mental health and help to change their attitudes towards seeking care.
One study found that academics who were more physically active and meeting the recommended guidelines of 150 minutes of moderate or vigorous intensity activity every week, were more likely to report higher levels of well-being and lower levels of distress.
But telling academics about physical activity is not enough and changes to the university environment are needed to support behaviour change.
The creation of physical activity options for staff, including social walking groups, free exercise facilities, and heavily subsidised cycle to work schemes, may help. Using physical activity to connect people around mental health, similar to England Athletics’ Mental Health Ambassador Programme, may further provide support. And increased physical activity isn’t something that would only help academics, everyone on campus could benefit.
Poor mental health among academics has serious consequences in terms of the future of universities. And if nothing is done to promote good mental health, we will continue to lose academics because of burnout. This could lead to a decrease in the standards of teaching and research – at a time when the UK arguably needs them most.
▻https://theconversation.com/more-academics-and-students-have-mental-health-problems-than-ever-b
#université #étudiants #santé_mentale #santé #travail #universitaires
How academics can improve their quality of life
At a time when stress and mental health issues are endemic within universities, Erin K. Wilson considers the small steps she is determined to take in order to be part of the solution.
Two years ago, I acknowledged that my academic work was seriously affecting my health. Indeed, I had to. I had no choice.
In 2012, I relocated from Australia to the Netherlands to take up a position as the founding director of a research centre. This role involved transitioning from politics and international relations to a Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies. I worked intensely for five years, researching, presenting at conferences and teaching; designing new educational and research programmes; organising seminars and workshops; taking on policy work with supra-national European institutions and foreign ministries. I spent my evenings, weekends and holidays writing grant applications, book chapters, journal articles; preparing course guides; editing books and journal issues. In 2017, I moved directly from this role to head of department. This, in hindsight, was a mistake.
The signs were there well before I eventually admitted it. For six months, I had not been sleeping. For over 12 months, I would wake in the middle of the night sweating, my heart pounding, hands shaking, teeth grinding, for no apparent reason. I became irritable, snapping at friends, colleagues and loved ones. I knew I was overreacting to inconsequential things yet was unable to stop myself. I couldn’t find joy or fulfilment in anything. Colleagues and friends were deeply worried about me but felt powerless to do anything.
In the end, the acknowledgement that I was not OK came in the middle of an impromptu, informal conversation with my dean. He came to speak to me about arranging additional administrative assistance for all heads of department. In order to organise it, he asked me for a list of tasks that the assistant would undertake. That short list, which would not have taken more than 10 minutes to put together, and would have resulted in additional support, was the proverbial last straw.
“It’s just one more thing I have to do,” I said, as I began to cry, uncontrollably, overwhelmed by the seemingly insurmountable expectations and demands of academic life.
I am privileged to be in a supportive workplace, and immediately received the assistance I needed to rest and recover from years of working myself into the ground. Many others are nowhere near so fortunate.
My story is in no way unique. I’ve encountered this never-ending work pressure in both Australia and the Netherlands. Colleagues in the US, the UK and elsewhere also recognise it. This culture is taking a severe toll on people’s physical and mental health, from students to established senior scholars. It is discouraging many of the brightest and most talented thinkers and researchers from pursuing academic careers.
That academia requires total commitment is in essence taken for granted. Examples from many different disciplines highlight the same stresses as contributors to this relentless work culture:
· Constant pressure to publish
· Increasing instability and insecurity of academic positions. I spent the first seven years of my academic career on temporary contracts, after a protracted and traumatic PhD experience. Many colleagues have spent far longer in unstable employment
· The demand that we be academic superheroes, able to do everything from teaching to marketing, despite little if any training in anything except research
· The pressure put on families and relationships by one partner having to live in another city, country or continent in order to have meaningful and relatively stable work (frequently with consequences that more detrimentally affect women)
· The constant grant application cycle, with deadlines at the end of vacation periods, meaning researchers use their holidays to write proposals, instead of taking an actual break.
These pressures are familiar to most academics, yet there is no doubt that they are systemic and there seems little prospect of relief any time soon.
In the Netherlands, following advice from the Commissie van Rijn, funding will be redirected to technical universities from general research universities, reducing staff capacity and undermining the quality of education. This funding reallocation takes place alongside planned 2020 budget cuts to the Dutch education sector of nearly €150 million (£130 million). At a cross-continental level, the new European Commission does not have a commissioner for research and education. These areas have been subsumed under the broader portfolio of “innovation and youth”. In the draft EU 2020 budget, more than €400 million have been cut from Horizon 2020, with the European Research Council alone losing almost €200 million from its annual budget. Meanwhile, back in my native Australia, the government announced that it would be cutting almost A$350 million (£188 million) over the next three years from university research funding.
In this ever-widening climate of financial scarcity and job insecurity, it’s no wonder that early and mid-career researchers are working themselves to the bone just to have a fighting chance of staying in the game. Many scholars are giving up and walking away entirely – and that should worry us. Impoverishing research and education damages our societies and weakens our democracies.
Huge structural shifts are certainly required to address these broader constraints. At the same time, I wonder whether we are also somewhat complicit in these pressures. Academia is shrouded in prestige and mystique, more like a vocation than a career. Yet endowing it with an almost sacred quality contributes to sustaining unhealthy working cultures: if you aren’t prepared to devote your evenings, weekends and holidays to writing and research, then maybe you should reconsider whether you are cut out to be an academic. It is these cultural dynamics internal to academia that we have some power to change.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to navigate these pressures as I transition back into full-time work. It’s an issue that’s recently become more urgent, since I accepted the position of faculty vice-dean and director of teaching. One of my main priorities is to avoid reproducing the cultures and behaviours that made me ill in the first place. It’s not easy. These behaviours and cultures are deeply entrenched. Financial pressures on universities can make it impossible to implement change.
Sometimes, though, it is not about what is possible. It is about who we are, who we want to be, what we want our universities to be, holding fast to what we value, even (especially) when those values are under threat or entirely absent. I want to go home at the end of each day knowing that, regardless of the outcome, I have done what I can to create an environment where people feel secure, protected and valued. In my view, this can only enhance the quality of our research and our education.
I don’t pretend to have the answers for how to do this without broader systemic reforms as well. Nonetheless, I do have some steps that I am trying in places and spaces where I do have some control and influence:
1. Resist the 24/7 work culture. I try as far as possible not to work evenings or weekends. If for some reason I have to, I take time off during the week to compensate. I encourage my colleagues and students to do the same. Rest and relaxation are as important for good scholarship as time spent actually working.
2. Promote and value diversity. I would like to see diversity sensitivity and implicit bias training introduced throughout my university, and indeed the sector as a whole. Yet even now, when hiring or promoting people, for example, we can make sure we consider the whole picture. What is their life outside work like? What caring responsibilities do they have? What circumstances, including discriminatory structures and practices, may have affected their ability to write, apply for grants, hold demanding leadership roles?
3. Advocate for greater security and stability in employment contracts. A colleague of mine, who has been on short-term contracts for many years, was recently offered a permanent job. When the faculty concerned offered it to her, they honestly admitted that they had funding secured for only the first two and a half years, but they felt that offering her a permanent role was “the ethical thing to do”, and they would figure out how to make up the shortfall. They chose to do what was right for the person, not for the budget.
4. Allow people to choose their own priorities in research, teaching and social engagement. As far as possible, don’t insist that people teach subjects they know nothing about or apply for grants before they’re ready. There are, of course, times when we all have to do things we don’t want to do. Yet such efforts and sacrifices should be acknowledged, honoured and compensated in some way, not just expected and taken for granted.
5. Promote transparency and open communication.Decision-making in higher education can be opaque and exclusionary. While this is intended to shield staff from worries about broader political and economic trends, it can leave them feeling disempowered. Involving all staff in discussions about present and future challenges can generate energy, community and solidarity to work together to address them.
6. Get involved with political actions to support academia and other social and political causes. Academia can feel like a solitary environment. Joining action groups, or even just wearing symbols of solidarity at work, can remind us that we are part of a global community of scholars committed to resisting unrealistic work pressure while upholding quality education and research. One such symbol is the red felt square, which first appeared as part of student demonstrations against tuition fee increases in Montreal and has since become a central component of protests against funding cuts, workforce casualisation, mounting workloads and commercialisation in Dutch academia.
7. Build relationships and support networks with colleagues. I am lucky to have a wonderful group of supportive colleagues. We discuss ideas about research and teaching, share life struggles, talk about issues that really matter to us.
8. Ask for help. I use these support networks when I am struggling, and support others when they are. We need to remove the taboos that prevent people from acknowledging that they are not OK, ask each other how we’re doing and get help when we need it.
9. Take time to look after ourselves and our families. I try to exercise every day, have a healthy diet and get enough sleep. I try to spend regular quality time with my husband. I started singing lessons. We need to make time for the people and things we love and that give us joy.
These are small measures and not always easy to carry out. Yet they can make a real difference in themselves and lay the groundwork for the systemic changes we would like to see. It is, after all, in the small places and spaces that our work and our lives happen. That is where we have power for change and where, I believe, the most necessary and most revolutionary change can occur.
▻https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/how-academics-can-improve-their-quality-life
@freakonometrics a twitter ce dernier article :
J’ai réagi ainsi :
Merci d’avoir ht ce texte. Je ne l’ai pas commenté sur seenthis, mais je trouve le titre problématique : ça met l’accent sur les actions individuelles des chercheur·es pour améliorer leur qualité de la vie au lieu de pointer du doigt les responsabilités institutionnelles.
La première cause de la dégradation de la qualité de vie des chercheur·es = diminution des ressources et la gestion néo-libérale des #universités.
Et j’ai reçu, d’une collègue aux Pays-Bas, une réponse qui ressemble fortement à ce que j’ai écrit... Non pas en réaction à l’article ci-dessus, mais en réaction à la mise en place, à l’Université d’Amsterdam, d’une « semaine anti-stress ». Le texte est simplement parfait, je me permets donc de le reproduire ici, sans mentionner l’auteur à qui je n’ai pas demandé si je pouvais le diffuser :
"The week of 11th of November is the week of work stress. It is the week where the university brings out its petting puppies, makes you bikeblend your smoothie, and has you beat a few djembe tunes to let go of your stress. Some might argue that it is a nice gesture of the employer, but we of the FNV in the OR find it a slap in the face of the employee. It adds insult to injury.
This waste of money again shows that the faculty is not taking work pressure seriously. We said it last year, and we said it again this year: “stop monkeying around and actually deal with the causes of work pressure”. Work pressure is not that difficult. There are either too many tasks for the number of people, or there are not enough people for the number of tasks. So the answers are also simple. If an organization is financially healthy, you hire more people. If the organization is financially unhealthy, you are stuck with reducing the tasks. There is no rocket science involved.
Yet as you can see in this week of work stress, the faculty seems keen to responsiblize the individual for the work pressure he or she is experiencing. This leads to offers such as time management (we just received an email that there are two spots still available), yoga, and mindfulness. But these are just bandaids ("lapjes voor het bloeden" as the Dutch expression goes) that obscure the structural faults of the system. There are too many administration processes. There is too much institutional distrust that you are not doing your work correctly leading to for instance to ’jaargesprekken’ being moments where you defend yourself instead of discussing how you would like to grow as an professional. There are criteria for promotion that seem to change during the process. We have to accept budget cuts in our teaching programme while at the same time the faculty wants to start new programmes that make new claims on budget and staff.
Recently, our support staff at EOSS was confronted with a report that was framed as research about the high work pressure they are experiencing. Yet it actually placed all the blame at the staff of EOSS and suggested their so-called inefficient work and non-conformance to instructions from management was the cause of their work pressure. Another signal that work pressure is not taking seriously by management and the individual employee is again responsibilized for his or her work’ stress’.The Works Council will keep pushing the Faculty and the UvA to make meaningful structural changes that address work pressure instead of blaming the victim. Namaste"
ça me met mal à l’aise ce genre de semaine... oui, ça reconnaît un problème, mais ça reste du maquillage ! c’est comme l’université qui dit d’un côté qu’il faut avoir une pensée écologique, mais que de l’autre imprime des stocks énormes de brochures sur papier glacé pour les portes ouvertes, ou qui te refuse des subventions si tu ne fais pas venir des stars à un colloque qui viennent du bout du monde pour 2 jours ! « The Works Council will keep pushing the Faculty and the UvA to make meaningful structural changes that address work pressure instead of blaming the victim » oui, entièrement d’accord... et après ?
« Le #classement_de_Shanghaï n’est pas fait pour mesurer la qualité des universités françaises »
Pour le chercheur #Hugo_Harari-Kermadec, ce classement a surtout poussé la #France à faire des choix qui vont à l’encontre de « l’esprit de #service_public ».
Le classement de Shanghaï des universités, dont la dernière édition est rendue publique jeudi 15 août, et les #politiques_d’excellence qui soutiennent cette #compétition entre établissements ont accentué la #polarisation de l’#enseignement_supérieur français, c’est-à-dire la logique de #distinction de quelques établissements au détriment des autres.
Ces « champions » sont aussi ceux qui accueillent la population étudiante la plus favorisée socialement. C’est ce qu’explique Hugo Harari-Kermadec, maître de conférences en économie à l’Ecole normale supérieure (ENS) Paris-Saclay et spécialiste de l’enseignement supérieur. Il est l’auteur du livre Ce que Shanghaï a fait à l’université française, qui paraîtra en octobre aux éditions Le Bord de l’eau.
Dans toutes les éditions du classement de Shanghaï, les établissements français sont plutôt mal classés. Est-ce le symptôme d’une mauvaise santé chronique des universités françaises ?
C’est surtout le signe que ce classement n’est pas fait pour mesurer la qualité des universités françaises. Il a une importance considérable dans le débat public français, alors que ce n’est pas le cas aux Etats-Unis, au Royaume-Uni, où les établissements universitaires sont pourtant très bien classés. Ni en Allemagne, où ils sont mal placés, pour des raisons similaires à la France. Des présidents de facultés allemandes refusent même de transmettre leurs informations au cabinet de conseil qui établit le classement.
En France, le classement de Shanghaï a entraîné des #choix_politiques, comme des #regroupements_universitaires, parfois artificiels, mais pourtant sans grands effets sur la place des établissements dans ce palmarès.
Les faibles #performances des facultés françaises dans le classement de Shanghaï ne sont pas, en soi, un signe de mauvaise santé. Ce qui ne veut pas dire qu’elles aillent bien. Elles manquent très sérieusement de moyens, surtout pour l’enseignement. Elles doivent en permanence s’adapter à un contexte réglementaire bouleversé depuis vingt ans, à une mise en concurrence pour obtenir des financements – pour la rénovation des campus ou pour les projets de recherche.
L’excellence de la #recherche compte énormément dans ce classement. Comment peut-elle s’articuler, dans un contexte budgétaire contraint, avec la nécessité d’accueillir en licence un nombre croissant d’étudiants ?
La politique du gouvernement est, sans l’assumer, de créer d’un côté des « #universités-licence » sans réelle recherche, et de l’autre, quelques très grandes universités de recherche, fusionnées avec des grandes écoles.
Cette logique est manifeste au travers des projets #IDEX (#initiative_d’excellence), ces programmes de financement de pôles universitaires qui revendiquent une excellence visible depuis Shanghaï. Mettre en avant le classement de Shanghaï dans la communication gouvernementale permet de justifier les importants #financements attribués à certains établissements – près de 1 milliard d’euros pour l’université Paris-Saclay. En outre, cette politique dite d’excellence a relégué au second plan l’accueil des nouveaux étudiants nés avec le boom démographique du début des années 2000.
Faire de la recherche et former le plus grand nombre, est-ce contradictoire ?
Dans la mise en œuvre des politiques publiques « d’excellence » à laquelle nous assistons, oui. Cela ne devrait pas l’être, puisque le lien entre #enseignement et recherche est la caractéristique du système universitaire.
Le #projet_Saclay a ainsi changé un nombre incalculable de fois pour arriver à un ensemble qui pourrait être classé par Shanghaï ; c’est-à-dire ressembler institutionnellement à une université anglo-saxonne. La nouvelle #université_Paris-Saclay, qui naîtra au 1er janvier 2020, sera un établissement avec des étudiants presque tous sélectionnés, focalisé sur le niveau master et le doctorat, et avec beaucoup plus de recherche et beaucoup moins d’enseignement que dans une université française traditionnelle.
Quels sont les effets de cette course à l’excellence, et de cette compétition entre universités françaises ?
Au sein du collectif de recherche Acides, avec Romain Avouac, nous avons montré que les universités françaises sont très polarisées suivant l’origine sociale des étudiants.
A #Paris-Dauphine, on ne trouve pratiquement pas d’enfants des classes populaires. A l’inverse, certaines universités d’outre-mer ou des Hauts-de-France ont très peu d’enfants de cadres, alors qu’ils constituent 40 % de la population étudiante à l’université. Et, surprise, les universités à la population étudiante la plus aisée sont celles qui sont les mieux classées par Shanghaï, et qui reçoivent les financements IDEX.
Les #financements des politiques publiques de « l’excellence » renforcent donc indirectement la #polarisation_sociale du #système_universitaire, en donnant plus de moyens pour l’éducation des étudiants favorisés. Finalement, adapter le système universitaire français au classement de Shanghaï, c’est lui faire adopter une logique de concurrence et de #rationalisation_économique, au détriment de l’esprit de service public et des missions académiques.
Ces classements sont-ils regardés par les étudiants ?
La sociologue Leïla Frouillou a montré en 2017 que les classements d’universités sont en réalité peu suivis par les étudiants. Même ceux de Dauphine, pourtant bien classée par Shanghaï, n’ont pas suivi le palmarès pour choisir leur établissement, comme l’ont montré dans leurs travaux les chercheurs Séverine Chauvel et Pierre Clément.
Il en va autrement pour les étudiants en mobilité internationale, en particulier en provenance d’Asie. D’une part parce qu’ils ne connaissent pas les universités françaises, contrairement aux étudiants français qui suivent les conseils de leurs enseignants et de leurs parents, amis, familles. D’autre part, choisir une université bien classée est un argument de poids lorsqu’il s’agit d’obtenir un prêt étudiant pour financer le voyage, le coût de la vie et les frais d’inscription.
►https://www.lemonde.fr/campus/article/2019/08/15/le-classement-de-shanghai-n-est-pas-fait-pour-mesurer-la-qualite-des-univers
#université #qualité #science #ranking #excellence #classes_sociales
Oups, déjà signalé par @kassem, je ne le vois que maintenant : ▻https://seenthis.net/messages/797357
Je laisse ici aussi car j’ai mis plus de tag, vu que le sujet m’intéresse particulièrement...
Tiens tiens... comme par hasard, l’#université_grenoble_alpes s’apprête à une nouvelle fusion (que nos dirigeants n’appellent pas fusion, mais quelque chose comme rapprochement, mais tant est...).
Après avoir fusionné les 3 universités de Grenoble en 2016 :
Fusion des trois universités grenobloises : Université Joseph Fourier (Grenoble 1), Université Pierre-Mendès-France (Grenoble 2), Université Stendhal (Grenoble 3). La nouvelle université se dénomme désormais Université Grenoble Alpes. Elle a pour ambition d’être encore plus visible à l’international et ainsi d’attirer les meilleurs étudiants, enseignants et enseignants-chercheurs.
▻https://www.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/l-universite/decouvrir-l-uga/decouvrir-l-universite-grenoble-alpes-367937.kjspl-histoire-de-l-uga/l-histoire-de-l-uga-1105.kjsp
... l’Université Grenoble Alpes s’apprête à créer en janvier 2020 une nouvelle entité : l’#Université_intégrée :
Vers une université intégrée
Initiée en 2013 avec la mise en place d’une signature unique pour les publications scientifique, renforcée en 2014 par la mise en oeuvre des pôles de recherche puis en 2016 par la création de l’Université Grenoble Alpes et l’obtention de l’IDEX, la dynamique « Univ. Grenoble Alpes » vise à créer un grand site universitaire de rang mondial. A l’horizon 2020, un nouvel établissement rassemblant l’Université Grenoble Alpes, la Communauté Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble INP, Sciences Po Grenoble et l’École Nationale supérieure d’architecture de Grenoble devrait ainsi voir le jour.
L’organisation et la gouvernance de cette université au statut juridique particulier font actuellement l’objet d’une concertation. Les groupes de concertation sont constitués de représentants des élus dans les conseils et de représentants des établissements.
▻https://www.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/l-universite/notre-strategie-politique-et-nos-grands-projets/vers-une-universite-integree/vers-une-universite-integree-369926.kjsp
Une nouvelle structure qu’en réalité personne ne veut (la fusion de 2016 a déjà coûté beaucoup d’énergie à tout le monde, et surtout au personnel technique et administratif), mais que le président de l’UGA mène au galop... l’enjeu ? Evidemment, pouvoir accéder aux financements IDEX...
« Le classement de Shanghaï n’est pas fait pour mesurer la qualité des #universités françaises »
►https://www.lemonde.fr/campus/article/2019/08/15/le-classement-de-shanghai-n-est-pas-fait-pour-mesurer-la-qualite-des-univers
Pour le chercheur Hugo Harari-Kermadec, ce classement a surtout poussé la France à faire des choix qui vont à l’encontre de « l’esprit de #service_public ».
[...]
La politique du gouvernement est, sans l’assumer, de créer d’un côté des « universités-licence » sans réelle recherche, et de l’autre, quelques très grandes universités de recherche, fusionnées avec des grandes écoles.
Cette logique est manifeste au travers des projets IDEX (initiative d’excellence), ces programmes de financement de pôles universitaires qui revendiquent une excellence visible depuis Shanghaï. Mettre en avant le classement de Shanghaï dans la communication gouvernementale permet de justifier les importants financements attribués à certains établissements – près de 1 milliard d’euros pour l’université Paris-Saclay. En outre, cette politique dite d’excellence a relégué au second plan l’accueil des nouveaux étudiants nés avec le boom démographique du début des années 2000.
Texas university to build $130M complex to test Army’s combat tech
▻https://www.defensenews.com/global/the-americas/2019/08/09/texas-university-to-build-130m-complex-to-test-armys-combat-tech
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Texas A&M University System’s RELLIS campus in Bryan will be the new home to accelerator space, laboratories and offices for the four-star command. The announcement was made in a news release Thursday after the board of regents authorized the contract.
The building will cost Texas A&M System $50 million, according to the release. It will also invest $30 million in infrastructure improvements for the new facility. The remaining $50 million was appropriated by the Texas legislature and will go toward an outdoor testing area at RELLIS.
L’article publié par @reka sur la situation des #citoyens_européens dans l’#Angleterre #après-Brexit m’a donné envie de créer une petite #métaliste sur le sujet, car il y a un peu de matériel sur seenthis déjà...
L’article signalé par Reka, donc :
EU citizens in UK at risk of ’Windrush-style catastrophe’
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/784118
#UK
ping @isskein
La peur du #brain-drain... La situation des chercheurs européens dans les #universités britanniques :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/604453
#fuite_de_cerveaux
Et plus en général sur le départ des citoyens européens :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/575801
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/506549
L’incertitude règne... personnes vivant dans un limbe juridique et dans l’inquiétude pour leur futur...
Les #universités professionnalisent fortement les contenus de la #formation et les parcours des #étudiants. La professionnalisation serait-elle un sésame pour l’#emploi ? Publié en coopération avec le CEREQ. ►http://sms.hypotheses.org/10256
►https://external-cdt1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQCoq1laV6Q9M-V8&w=476&h=249&url=https%3A
Les #universités professionnalisent fortement les contenus de la #formation et les parcours des #étudiants. La professionnalisation serait-elle un sésame pour l’#emploi ? Publié en coopération avec le CEREQ. ►http://sms.hypotheses.org/10256
►https://external-cdt1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQCoq1laV6Q9M-V8&w=476&h=249&url=https%3A
Inventaire de la #précarité des enseignant·es et chercheur·es
►https://precairesesr.fr/2019/05/07/inventaire-de-la-precarite-des-enseignant%c2%b7es-et-chercheur%c2%b7es
Désengagement de l’État, autonomie budgétaire des #universités, financement de la #recherche sur projet… Quelles conséquences pour les doctorant·es et les docteur·es sans poste ? À partir des 1021 réponses reçues à son questionnaire, Le Collectif des travailleur·es précaires de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche (ESR) fait l’inventaire de la précarité des enseignant·es et chercheur·es sur la période 2014-2018.
►https://precairesesr.fr/wp-content/uploads/Inventaire-de-la-pre%CC%81carit%C3%A9.pdf
Brown University Students Pass BDS Referendum – The Forward
▻https://forward.com/fast-forward/421343/brown-university-becomes-first-ivy-league-school-to-pass-student-bds-vote
Students at Brown University voted Thursday to call on the school to divest from companies that allegedly violate human rights through their work in Israel.
Some 69% voted for the measure in a campus referendum, with 31% opposed. Students were asked whether the university should ““divest all stocks, funds, endowment and other monetary instruments from companies complicit in human rights abuses in Palestine.” Around 44% of the student body participated in the vote, which also included student government elections.
Many Jewish students expressed their disappointment in the result. “This referendum is a defeat for all students who believe there is a better way to pursue peace between Israelis and Palestinians, who seek intellectually honest discourse about Israel and the conflict, and who prioritize a safe and inclusive community at Brown,” the group Brown Students for Israel said on their Facebook page.
But the group Brown Divest, which also included some Jewish supporters, was jubilant. “Today is a historic day for Brown as we take an emboldened and clear stand against the university’s complicity in human rights abuses in #Palestine and in similar systems of oppression around the world,” the coalition said in a statement.
Les étudiants de Brown University votent pour BDS
Brown Divest, le 21 mars 2019
▻http://www.agencemediapalestine.fr/blog/2019/03/25/les-etudiants-de-brown-university-votent-pour-bds
C’est avec un immense honneur et enthousiasme que nous annonçons le succès remporté dans le référendum Brown Divest (Brown désinvestit) d’aujourd’hui, 21 mars 2019. Le oui a été voté à 69% et la participation d’aujourd’hui a été une des plus fortes dans l’histoire des élections organisées par le Conseil étudiant de premier cycle : 3 076 étudiants ont voté. Aujourd’hui est un jour historique pour Brown puisque nous prenons une position hardie et claire contre la complicité de l’université avec les violations des droits humains en Palestine et dans des systèmes d’oppression similaires dans le monde.
Aujourd’hui, nous rejoignons d’autres universités telles que Swarthmore, NYU, UCLA, l’Université George Washington et d’autres qui ont mené des campagnes avec le même succès. Nous devenons aussi la première université Ivy League à lancer un référendum de désinvestissement sur la Palestine et nous avons hâte d’en voir d’autres suivre notre exemple.
Ce référendum représente non seulement un pas décisif sur cette question, mais un travail de mobilisation et d’unification de plusieurs années d’une coalition diversifiée de groupes d’étudiants du campus. Cette campagne n’aurait pas été possible si nous ne nous étions pas unis en une communauté.
Les membres de Brown Divest ne voient ce référendum ni comme un début ni comme une fin de notre lutte pour la justice. Nous continuerons sur notre lancée et nous nous rassemblerons en communauté pour tenir l’administration responsable de l’application du résultat de ce référendum.
A mettre avec l’évolution de la situation aux États-Unis vis à vis de la Palestine :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/752002
Accusations of Anti-Semitism Target Progressive Faculty at CUNY
▻http://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/38485
Kingsborough administrator Michael Goldstein, in particular, has accused progressive faculty at the college of orchestrating a “systematic and pernicious campaign” of anti-Semitic hate against him. “The reason for their attack?” he writes. “I’m Jewish, politically conservative and I believe in Zionism, the civil rights movement of the Jewish people.” These accusations have been picked up and amplified by the Jerusalem Post and Tablet magazine.
These accusations are irresponsible and unsubstantiated. In making them, Goldstein is adopting a dangerous, increasingly common tactic of the right: cynically deploying anti-Semitism—a very real problem—as a weapon to intimidate political opponents.
Progressive faculty have been subject to a number of different forms of harassment. More than a dozen, for example, have received letters from the Lawfare Project threatening a lawsuit. Some of the progressive faculty accused by Goldstein in the press of inciting anti-Semitic hatred have also received threatening emails and letters.
Kingsborough English Professor Anthony Alessandrini, who is also on the faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center’s MA Program in Middle Eastern Studies, is one of those Goldstein publicly accuses in a recent article of being a “puppet-master” of his fellow progressive faculty, and of inciting anti-Semitic hatred at the college. The article specifically cites Alessandrini’s scholarly and political involvement with Palestine solidarity work, and make the case that an article he wrote about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is evidence of his anti-Jewish views. That Goldstein and the journalistic outlets reporting his story are conflating critique of Israel with anti-Semitism threatens to squash discussion of an issue that faculty KCC have the right to study, write about, and discuss freely, as they do regarding all important political and intellectual matters.
It is telling that Goldstein has called on the support of the Lawfare Project, whose mission involves using lawsuits alleging anti-Semitism as a means to harass faculty and educational institutions, perhaps most notably San Francisco State University, in a case recently dismissed by a federal judge. (A separate, related case in state court is still pending.)
#instrumentalisation de l’#antisémitisme pour empêcher les critiques contre #Israël dans les #universités #USA
#Tag : « Bienvenue nulle part » :: : ! #BienvenueEnFrance =5 etudiant-e-s en grève de la faim à #Nantes ! Blocus & Manif demain !
▻https://www.flickr.com/photos/valkphotos/46353251874
ValK. a posté une photo :
#13février, Blocus de la Fac (dès 6h/6h30) puis Manif (10h) contre l’augmentation drastique des frais d’inscription pour les étudiant-e-s étranger-e-s +> plus d’infos sur ►https://nantes.indymedia.org et ►https://44.demosphere.net et ►https://twitter.com/UnivNantesLutte et ►https://www.facebook.com/Universit%C3%A9-de-Nantes-en-lutte-1691556827783529
#BienvenueEnFrance : ! 5 etudiant-e-s en grève de la faim à #Nantes ! Demain #13février, Blocus de la Fac (dès 6h/6h30) puis Manif (10h) contre l’augmentation drastique des frais d’inscription pour les étudiant-e-s étranger-e-s
▻https://www.flickr.com/photos/valkphotos/32133740857
ValK. a posté une photo :
plus d’infos sur ►https://nantes.indymedia.org et ►https://44.demosphere.net et ►https://twitter.com/UnivNantesLutte et ►https://www.facebook.com/Universit%C3%A9-de-Nantes-en-lutte-1691556827783529
#BienvenueEnFrance : ! 5 etudiant-e-s en grève de la faim à #Nantes ! Demain #13février, Blocus de la Fac (dès 6h/6h30) puis Manif (10h) contre l’augmentation drastique des frais d’inscription pour les étudiant-e-s étranger-e-s
▻https://www.flickr.com/photos/valkphotos/46351340144
ValK. a posté une photo : plus d’infos sur ►https://nantes.indymedia.org et ►https://44.demosphere.net et ►https://twitter.com/UnivNantesLutte et ►https://www.facebook.com/Universit%C3%A9-de-Nantes-en-lutte-1691556827783529