The dilemma is a catch-22: how to ensure university entry to all high school graduates who desire it in the name of equal rights. How to ensure success in a higher education program for students who have not necessarily made a precise and well-thought-out choice regarding their orientation. How to ensure a qualitative level of education according to European or international parameters with a growing number of student admissions to universities. How to organize study programs that match the demands of a job market in full transformation? How to have international visibility and be attractive? How, how, how…
With a failure rate of nearly 60% between entry and graduation (3 years), the assessment says it is urgent to find corrective solutions.
Apart from that, everything is fine, and the 2017/8 university intake is “overall positive” – say in one voice the Rector of the Nice Academy Emmanuel Ethis and the new President of UNS Emmanuel Tric, who succeeded the current Minister of Higher Education and Research Frédérique Vidal.
The Nice University, founded in 1965, is a multidisciplinary and multi-campus institution (9), located in Nice, Cannes, Menton, Grasse, and Sophia-Antipolis. It welcomes nearly 30,000 students, of whom 20% are of foreign nationality (international standard: 25%).
The teaching and administrative staff number nearly 2,700. In the international ranking, it is classified in the 500 class, far from excellence.
UNS is structured into 7 faculties, 3 institutes, 3 schools. Since 2015, UNS has been a member of the Université Côte d’Azur, which groups all the higher education institutes of the department, destined to merge with a goal of rationalizing and pooling objectives and means to best implement the master’s-doctorate-research triptych and create an internationally excellent “cluster”.
But this achievement will take time. For the moment, we remain with the current issues to which we must try to provide answers.
The slogan “accompany each student towards success” is what Anglophones define as a “nice sound”. Then, we return to “how”…
