IFUT News

Dear participants,

Please find hereafter the link to the video on the FENPROF campaign in defence of public education shown at our Special meeting on ‘What is needed to improve the Quality of Education in Europe?’ held in Brussels on 23 October 2013 : http://youtu.be/qVleW8vyHOo

For more information on the ‘Unite for Quality Education’ campaign please visit: http://www.unite4education.org/andhttp://etuce.homestead.com/UNITE4.html

Best wishes

The Secretariat

Third Level Workplace Watch is running a survey for academics and researchers working in the third level sector in Ireland.

The survey involves a small questionnaire and will help to quantify the current employment situation for respondents.

The survey can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/thirdlevelworkplacewatch 

An insightful review of two timely books: Everything for Sale? The Marketisation of UK Higher Education by Roger Brown, with Helen Carasso
and The Great University Gamble: Money, Markets and the Future of Higher Education by Andrew McGettigan

... But for all their differences, these two books provide a chillingly convergent description of the huge gamble that is being taken with higher education in England: an unprecedented, ideologically driven experiment, whose consequences even its authors cannot wholly predict or control.

To read the full reviews please visit: Sold Out by Stefan Collini

Dear colleagues,
 
In the context of implementing the ETUCE work programme for the years 2013-2016 and with the aim to continue to deliver the high quality service to its member organisations, the ETUCE Secretariat is offering two internship opportunities at the ETUCE premises in Brussels for a 10-month period starting on 1 February 2014 and ending on 31 January 2015. (A 5-month period, until 30 June 2014 is also possible). Based on its positive experience with previous internships, the ETUCE Secretariat kindly asks its member organisations for their assistance and commitment in filling these positions.

Dear colleagues,
Please find below the summary of a new report commissioned by the EC on “Drop-out and Completion in Higher Education in Europe among students from under-represented groups”. The full report and the executive summary are attached and available on the Sharepoint portal.

The financial and economic crisis, as well as the sovereign debt crisis, have caused considerable strain in public budgets. Governments across Europe have jeopardized the future of their countries by cutting education funding. Perhaps surprisingly, however, the majority of respondents to this survey have not experienced cuts in education budgets. 46 per cent of respondents did, and this number is extremely worrying. Governments have also cut teachers’ salaries and dismissed them. Although mergers of schools and their closures are significant, the survey shows that this has not been the case in the majority of countries which participated in the survey. This survey reveals, however, that there has been a strong push across Europe for reforms in the education sector.

Our academic colleagues in DCU have started a campaign in Defence of Irish Universities.

The campaing begins, "The Irish university is in crisis, through massive under-funding combined with commercialisation and managerialism. We ask you to sign this set of principles to support us in defending third level education in Ireland..."