The day of action will be national. Like all its counterparts in France, the IUT of Nice-Côte d’Azur is preparing on November 25 for a day of strike—and explanations to the public and the press—to draw the attention of Valérie Pécresse, the Minister of Higher Education and Research, to an “unintended consequence” of her August 2007 Law on the autonomy and responsibility of Universities: the Ministry’s abandonment of specific budgetary allocations for the means dedicated to teaching provided by the University Institutes of Technology. In simple terms, while under the old system, IUTs received a portion of their funding directly from Paris with specific designation of educational tasks to be accomplished—the “earmarking”—the new Law no longer clearly indicates, in the overall operating grant made available to university presidents with enhanced powers, the specific portion reserved for IUTs. This problem is even more acute since the financial autonomy of the latter was maintained in the August 2007 law—the former and famous Article 33 of Law 84-52 of January 26, 1984, on Higher Education is found in Article 713.9 of the new arrangement—which still makes its Director the exclusive authorizing official of expenditures and revenues, as well as the principal responsible for staff and their appointments. “Autonomy still exists on paper,” some professors explain, “but it has been emptied of its substance.” They wonder if this is due to a “mere legal malfunction” or “a deliberate intention on the part of the central administration.”
Worried by the growing conflicts opposing them to the “governance” of Universities over the distribution of this financial windfall and the uncertainties weighing on the consideration of the specific nature of their research and training policies, the Assembly of IUT Directors and the Presidents of the Institute Councils today express concern about a challenge to their missions of technological and professional training as early as January 2009. These missions, however, have been widely acclaimed by the Minister for their efficiency, with a labor market integration rate of nearly 80% for Professional Licenses, enabling students in these programs to find remunerated employment more quickly than others upon completion. A significant argument in these times of economic scarcity. Moreover, these same officials criticize the Conference of University Presidents for halting discussions initiated weeks ago to find a solution. They also regret the Minister’s lack of greater involvement and her referral of the issues to the local level.
On November 25, several General Assemblies will thus take place at the various sites of the Nice-Côte d’Azur IUT in Nice, Sophia, Cannes, and Menton. Classes will be suspended intermittently as information is provided to students, while various actions will be undertaken within the institutions. A press conference will also be organized at 10 a.m. on the Nice site in the presence of the IUT Director, department heads, teachers, and students.
Recently elected as the Director of the IUT, Henri Alexis, whose political views are not far from those of the current majority, had set his mandate under the banner of International exposure for students and concrete rapprochement with the business world. Students who, according to him, will be “the first victims” as he had hoped that the IUT would be “a model for its dynamism and efficiency for the entire University.” “This is a critical moment, determinant for the future of all IUTs in France,” adds someone whose colleagues generally praise for his great moderation. For him to call for a “strong mobilization,” even one of them explains, means that the “problem is real and serious.”
