For example, nearly 40,000 students with disabilities are now enrolled in higher education at university, school or lycée. This corresponds to a 30% increase in enrolment in 5 years (end-2021 figures), while the number has increased 5-fold since the 2005 law and 2.5-fold since the 2012 university-disability charter.

But inclusion is not just about access for people with disabilities. It also concerns students’ social situation, their membership of a minority, whether ethnic, cultural, or of a sexual orientation, and sometimes even their geographical location. What’s more, some students face other serious difficulties, such as discrimination, social exclusion, harassment or lack of resources, and may therefore be at a disadvantage in their academic careers.

In France, under the impetus of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, the national monitoring committee for inclusive universities is ensuring that all players provide solutions for the accessibility of training courses, student life in all its dimensions, digital environments, content and compensation measures (human assistance, technical assistance and examination arrangements).

At European level, the European Commission is presenting recommendations to its 27 member states, stressing that “higher education must contribute to meeting Europe’s social and democratic challenges”. Three major avenues have been identified for achieving global harmonization of study paths :

• a comprehensive approach to admission, teaching and assessment ;
• take measures to ensure student tutoring ;
• provide both academic and non-academic support.

Naturally, we’re talking here about inclusion in the broadest sense, aiming for an equality of opportunity that still seems a long way off for certain populations. The EUROSTUDENT study carried out over 2018-2021 at European level, indicates that 15% of students suffer from a “physical or psychological disability” and that 15% of the student population has an immigrant background. Responding to better integration of these two minorities and guaranteeing them equivalent access and results remains an essential challenge, including when disparities between countries are appreciable.

In France, a survey by OVE (Observatoire de la Vie Etudiante), revealed in 2016, that almost 20% of students said they had been “treated less well” than their peers within universities. This percentage rose to 28% when students whose parents were both immigrants were surveyed, and to 30% when the student was of foreign nationality. It’s also worth noting that 19% of women felt less well treated, compared with only 17% of men. Among students who felt less well treated, the student experience was a key concern, with 14% feeling “not at all integrated into their group or class”, while 21% felt “not at all integrated into the life of the institution”.

It is important to note that only one student in 8 is able to identify the cause of his or her “bad treatment” in relation to others, and disability or gender are not given much prominence. On the contrary, origin or nationality seem far more significant when it comes to explaining a difference in acceptance by the system. Finally, for those who didn’t necessarily find a primary explanation for their feelings, the study underlined that social attitudes and behaviour – whether in terms of politeness, social ease, dress conformity or sporting or cultural practices – were also a source of discrimination.

OVE INFOS

While acknowledging that the situation is not optimal is a step forward, inclusion means taking diversity into account and respecting it, but above all responding to it.

So what are the main ideas for improving student inclusion in their course of study ?

Diversity is defined in this way by two researchers from Quebec’s Laval University, Sheryl Burgstalhler and Rebecca Cory :

“It implies the variety of identity markers of individuals and groups. It also refers to the attitudes, modes of expression, experiences and needs that arise from these different characteristics: communication skills, culture, marital status, ability to be present in class, learning abilities, intelligence, fields of interest, cognitive abilities, values, social skills, family support, learning styles, age, socioeconomic status, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, ethnicity, physical and sensory abilities, ethnic group, gender.”

What are the main difficulties encountered by learners at all levels, and which characterize this diversity?

Their work by Sheryl Burgstalhler and Rebecca Cory is taken up in the Universal Design for Learning, which proposes three main principles for increasing inclusion, based on the variety of means of representation, action and expression, as well as engagement.

In a way, the multiplication of modalities of presentation, expression and evaluation now made possible by digital tools and platforms should go a long way towards improving the situation. But digital technology must not be allowed to exacerbate the inequality of access to knowledge.

Digital Edtech as a factor of inclusion ?

French EdTechs are working in this direction, and while they all have in mind the difficulties experienced by certain student populations, a few have made inclusion their flagship subject. Take Cantoo, for example, which targets young people suffering from written language disorders (dyslexia, dysorthographia and dysgraphia), or Colori, which helps children to better understand the digital world without resorting to the screen, targeting QPVs (priority urban policy districts) and girls in particular. These initiatives are supported by Banque du Territoire, as is My Future, which helps young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to find internships throughout their apprenticeship.

What about higher education staff ?

However, it would be simplistic to confine our discussion of inclusion to the student population. The issue is also a major one within higher education establishments. Do educational staff feel perfectly integrated, while respecting their diversity ?

Figures recently published in an article in EdTech Actu show that much remains to be done on this subject, even if the situation has evolved positively since the 2005 law. For example, in 2020, “higher education had an average rate of 3.5% of staff benefiting from the employment obligation (BOE), i.e. with a declared disability, compared with the minimum 6% of staff required of each administration by law.” There are major disparities from one establishment to another, even though a disability correspondent has been appointed in every French university since 2005. Cyril Garnier, senior vice-president of FNCAS (Fédération nationale pour la responsabilité sociétale & Conseil en action sociale – enseignement supérieur, recherche), a lecturer and researcher at UPHF (Université Polytechnique des Hauts de France), agrees :

“It’s more than just raising awareness, it’s a real investment in disability. This is increasingly part of their governance strategy, as it contributes to their direct attractiveness.”

In a book entitled “L’envers de l’école inclusive” (The other side of inclusive schooling) published in November 2022, school teacher Magalie Jeancler analyzes the questions and problems raised by inclusive schooling, which refers to the integration of children with disabilities into normal classes. She underlines the loneliness of teachers faced with the pedagogical challenges posed by this approach, as well as the lack of appropriate support.

Clearly, the challenges of inclusion begin in the early years of schooling. The consequences of a lack of resources deployed to promote inclusion from the outset are likely to be far-reaching once pupils have become students. There are many voices expressing growing discontent in our country, and some are vigorously challenging our governing bodies. For example, the “Inclusive School for All” collective, which brings together parents, teachers and AESHs (the staff who provide support for pupils with disabilities), organized a demonstration in front of the Palais Bourbon on Wednesday March 29, to ensure that “every child with a disability benefits from schooling adapted to his or her needs”.

France is a country whose education system is faced with complex situations, and in particular with ever-increasing demands for access to success for all. Inclusion is undoubtedly a major theme in the development of a desirable future for higher education. Once again, universities are on the front line in guaranteeing the republican spirit and equal opportunities. This noble mission can mobilize our entire ecosystem to find new solutions and respond to the diversity of the student world.

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What emerged from the debates that followed this very official speech is undoubtedly that we are in the process of “moving from an economy of attention to an economy of intention”, as Marie Ekeland, founder of 2050, aptly put it. Addressing tech issues from a political angle means both asking the question of data sovereignty, and making it clear to audiences that there are decisions to be made together: what we want to do with Artificial Intelligence, to summarize the remarks of Asma Mhalla, Senior Lecturer at Columbia, Sciences Po and Polytechnique and Mounir Mahjoubi, former Secretary of State for Digital and now entrepreneur.

It’s clear, then, that the “monitoring” of intention must take precedence over the strong attraction that excites crowds and the media with every technological leap. For it is first and foremost the desire and need for sustainable transformation that must motivate the adoption of technology. The sensational collapse of the SVB bank shows the extent to which reactions and changes in behavior are much more vivid and instantaneous than ever before. As a result, we need to take a political view of the use of AI, while ensuring that it is as accessible to all as possible. Rather than giving in to the injunction to pause for regulation, suggested in particular by Elon Musk, it would be more important to win some upcoming battles, building on our strengths and our political vision, as Mounir Mahjoubi, and Olivier SICHEL, Director of Banque des Territoires, remind us.

Nevertheless, the attention economy is very much present, and it is primarily the content distributed to us by American or Chinese platforms that raises the question of audience alienation. In these cases, the intention is highly questionable. How can we manage to extricate ourselves from this enormous stranglehold that manipulates populations and sucks up their personal data to feed Artificial Intelligence models? Can we accept that technology, that machines, do everything for us, including deciding what we should read, learn and know? When the Americans propose a vision of a smart city for an African country, it provokes a reaction from the inhabitants, who absolutely do not want to become stupid users subjected to the dictates of technology. And this is just one example among many, which clearly demonstrates the need for meaning and intention to prevail over the deployment of technology.

This debate on intention was echoed in the day’s other presentations, from Sylvie Jehanno, CEO of Dalkia, who came to talk about decarbonization, to Jean-Marie Messier, who evoked the paradox of the ultimate laziness that the use of ChatGPT can engender at the risk of losing the sense of learning, and Gilles Babinet, who invoked Schumpeter to remind us that every economic transition results in massive job destruction before being an opportunity for renewal.

There was an emotional mix in the room, shifting from gloom to light as each speaker made his or her point. Yet the idea of this day is to highlight and congratulate the hopeful initiatives of France’s new Tech companies. Are we to understand that their positive intentions are our only way out of the crises and chaos we’ve been experiencing for the past three years? Is it reassuring to note that during these difficult times, brilliant minds continue to create, innovate and imagine a sustainable and responsible future ?

That’s for sure ! Seeing the best candidates chosen from hundreds of remarkable projects on stage is invigorating. It’s a show that puts real entrepreneurs in the spotlight. Those who dare to imagine other solutions, from the energy born of the encounter between the salt water of the oceans and the fresh water of rivers, to new tools to enable children suffering from disorders such as dyslexia or autism, for example, to follow a normal learning path, and why not the utopia turned reality of a fully automated dairy processing plant, installed directly on the farm. Energy, health, education, food and the local economy: these projects cover all our most basic needs and can have a major impact on our lives, while respecting the planet.

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The evil is deeper, since it also comes from within. Last August, President Biden pushed through a strong and controversial decision in the Republican camp. In order to reduce the debt, the measure proposed that the federal government should assume between $10,000 and $20,000 of each student’s outstanding debt, depending on their situation and indexed to their income. Proof that it was urgent to send a powerful signal to young people who see their American dream slipping away a little further each year.

With enrolment falling to a record low in 2020, there are certainly other causes and other solutions to explore. First, we need to open our doors to diversity. The days of WASP domination are over, and Boston or Washington are no longer the center of the world in a globalized knowledge economy. Moreover, recently published rankings also bear witness to this necessary shift towards greater inclusion of populations in all their diversity. It is expected of those with lower incomes, whose family situations are more precarious and who are more exposed to mental health disorders, such as those resulting from the covid-19 crisis.

In a historic first, the Forbes 2022 ranking puts California’s public university, Berkeley, at the top, relegating Harvard to 7th place. Admittedly, the 9 universities that follow Berkeley in the rankings are private, but the change in evaluation criteria explains this major upheaval for an elite that was stuck in its positions. In addition to the indicators of salary levels offered to new graduates, success rates and return on investment, the level of debt and the proportion of students benefiting from excellence scholarships have significantly altered the landscape. This logical outcome is also the result of a policy of positive discrimination, endorsed by the Supreme Court, to ensure that ethnic and gender minorities, and other groups usually under-represented in the student world, play a greater role. For these profiles, like community college students, face more challenges at university than others and need support and encouragement, especially in their first year.

When the American university model goes the distance

There are huge differences not only in the level of education, but also in the resources available and the recognition of diplomas by the job market, depending on whether the student attends a community college or a famous Ivy League university. Unfortunately, this disparity is all too closely correlated with tuition fees and, consequently, students’ social background.

Community colleges offer shorter, more technical courses, and mainly recruit students who have not been able to enter the “big” universities. These universities, often referred to as “second-tier”, are much less highly rated, but also much more affordable. Today, in the wake of the Covid crisis and the current economic situation, they account for almost half of all students in the USA (48% with 7 million students), and their success is growing. Graduating in two years, students are quicker to enter the job market, and arrive with far less debt.

The Ivy League refers to a group of eight New England universities : Harvard University, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Columbia University, Brown University, Dartmouth College and Cornell University. These universities, which still represent the prestige and excellence of university education around the world, go to great lengths to ensure that the hard-selected students who join them adhere to and claim the values and educational project of the American elite.

But for most of the 4,000 establishments covering the country, competition is intense and attractiveness varied. So much so, that some of them boast about the local environment, climate, ambience and tourist activities to win over future “graduates”.

Nowadays, the welcome given to new students, the “freshmen”, is given special care and attention to avoid rapid defections. Concerned about their image, American universities offer integration preparation programs, psychological support to deal with stress, and work groups to help students learn how to get together, take part in activities and integrate into campus and social life. Rarely have higher education institutions gone to such lengths to reassure families and their children of school age.

And the stakes are high for the country. The Biden administration’s proactive policy of financial support for the university system is undoubtedly a consequence of China’s emergence as the world’s leading innovator. As a recent report by Japan’s National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTP) shows, China now publishes the largest number of scientific research articles, followed by the USA and Germany.

Sacrilege in the land of Uncle Sam!

Has American research and academic excellence been overtaken by the Asian and Communist giant? How else to respond than by increasing the financial resources of the world’s finest and most renowned universities?

Yet Harvard, founded in 1636, has a budget of some $35 billion. A bastion of white-elite conservatism, its leadership is being challenged by Berkeley, the protesting public university in California. A kind of thumbing of the nose at hard-line capitalism, which could well inspire an evolution of the system towards consideration of issues of inclusion and social equity.

In an article published by Le Monde Diplomatique in July 2018, we read this edifying observation :

“In 2011, research conducted on thirty institutions concluded that “with equal qualifications, the children of former students had chances of admission 45% higher than those of non-heir applicants. In other words, a student who would have a 40% chance of admission on the basis of merit and profile (academic aptitude test results, sporting qualities, gender, etc.) sees these climb to 85% in the case of favorable heredity”.

Les temps ont-ils changé ?

On se rappellera que Bob Dylan est venu chanter à l’invitation de Barack Obama, à la Maison Blanche en février 2010, une chanson écrite en 1964, annonçant déjà : « for the times they are a-changin » et qui se conclue sur ce dernier couplet :

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

 

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’

 

Bob Dylan

To discuss the subject, we spoke to Jean-Marie Cognet, CEO of Ubicast and VP Higher Education for EdTech France, on the occasion of April’s EdTech Question.

So, how can the world of higher education react to what seems to be the dawn of a new revolution for written exchanges and, by extension, for assessments? Should we embrace the technology and make the most of it? How can we guard against misuse?

Simone’s Robots set off to investigate their favorite playground: French universities and higher education establishments. By way of introduction, ChatGPT is just the tip of the iceberg, and other tools using artificial intelligence have already invaded the fields of artistic creation and content, both written and visual. Producing a video featuring a 3D avatar with a very human voice, capable of delivering a well-written speech, is now within the reach of almost anyone. As a result, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish fact from fiction when it comes to information. And that’s just one of the problems facing our society.

What model lies behind ChatGPT?

As Colin de la Higuera reminds us in his article for the Unesco Relia Chair at the University of Nantes,

“its engine is called GPT-3, and is the 3rd iteration of a Large Language Model (LLM). Built from a maximum of texts found on the Internet (estimated at 570 GB or 300 billion words), the result is a model called a neural network, which can be seen as a gigantic system of equations. This system will be defined by 175 billion parameters. Hours of computation on powerful machines have made it possible to adjust (or “train”) these parameters.”

Version 4 has already been announced and is set to far exceed this remarkable performance. The author rightly emphasizes the fact that artificial intelligence is the subject of numerous studies and research projects within universities themselves, while teacher-researchers are also being trained in the new skills it brings.

Students, for their part, immediately seized on the unprecedented capabilities of this new type of assistant. Is this surprising? Is it any wonder that a generation born into a digitalized world is the first to understand the immediate benefits of technology? Of course, the clever ones have understood that the conversational assistant can be called upon at any time, for any type of written production, including in another language, and in a matter of seconds. As a result, suspicions and proven cases of “cheating” multiplied, even prompting the highly prestigious Sciences Po to brandish a ban on its use, which was quickly re-characterized as a charter to be respected by students, as part of a broader anti-plagiarism campaign.

An official statement from Sergei Guriev, Director of Education and Research, underlining the importance of the challenge posed by new technologies in the following terms:

“ChatGPT is a major innovation that is part of the digital transition underway in our societies. Under Mathias Vicherat’s leadership, we are placing this issue at the heart of Sciences Po’s pedagogical and research projects. It is essential for an institution concerned with guaranteeing the quality and integrity of its courses and diplomas to supervise the use of this tool.”

Obviously, it will be very difficult to ban. Many voices are calling for reason, and asking all teachers to adapt both their teaching methods and assessment models. There is an urgent need to take new practices into account, and to work with students on the basis of what ChatGPT can provide as initial elements in a project that will need to be refined, criticized and enriched by everyone’s personal and individual vision. Relying on a basic, common text will not be enough to build an essay. We need to go further.

“We need to ensure that our higher education and research system is in tune with global challenges such as the fight against climate change, global health and, of course, emerging technologies. We’ve got a big challenge ahead of us, but I’m convinced that we can rise to this challenge together” declared Sylvie Retailleau, French Minister for Higher Education and Research, at the close of the Think Education event on January 26. She continued for a few moments with a speech that some would have described as “tongue-in-cheek”, before admitting that it had been written by… ChatGPT! Who, at the time, could have said so? How can we not understand that the tool is quite capable of deceiving our vigilance?

Certains proposent de développer des solutions anti-fraude capables de détecter un texte produit par l’intelligence artificielle, dans la lignée des logiciels anti-plagiat qui ont vu le jour lorsque Wikipedia est devenu un contributeur un peu trop présent dans le monde étudiant. C’est le cas de Compilatio, dont le président Frédéric Agnès explique dans une interview donnée à Campus Matin, que tout en ne jugeant pas la qualité de la copie rendue par un étudiant, qu’actuellement « le logiciel rend un rapport d’analyse des similitudes. Il ne s’agit pas seulement de détecter les copiés-collés, mais aussi les reformulations lourdes (similitudes de sens et non de mots). Avec ChatGPT, il s’agira de scorer la probabilité d’usage de l’intelligence artificielle. ». Mais Frédéric Agnès en convient, il y a fort à parier qu’à ce jeu du chat et de la souris, le chat aura le plus souvent un ou plusieurs coups d’avance.

However, in the USA, a team of researchers at Stanford University has announced the development of a detection system, called DetectGPT, designed for use by higher education teachers. At Princeton University, a student has developed a tool called GPTZeroX, which can also detect the use of ChatGPT. Finally, OpenAI, the creator of this conversational prodigy, is well aware of the need to reassure the world of education. In a recent Tweet, co-founder Sam Altman made his limitations clear :

“ChatGPT is incredibly limited, but good enough in some areas to create a false impression of excellence. It’s a mistake to trust it with anything important right now”.

Other solutions are possible. This is the view of Antonio Casili, professor at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris and author of “En attendant les robots” (Seuil), for whom ChatGPT is just another technology to be integrated into the world of education. It’s up to teachers to know how to explain its proper uses, as “it’s an opportunity for us to see how students carry out the tasks entrusted to them, to get them to work on fact-checking, and to check that the bibliographical references generated are correct”.

A statement that echoes the work of the Unesco Chair at the University of Nantes, which highlights the outdated nature of summative assessments, and calls on teachers to use their imagination to offer tomorrow’s students something different. Technology has always been a source of opportunity and evolution. What avenues are currently being explored in higher education ?

The main conclusion of the various works in progress is that students need to think and work differently. With the help of an artificial intelligence-fed assistant, ChatGPT or its likely iterations, could we bring out other student skills ?

For example, explains Colin de la Higuera, it could be a question of developing the ability to reformulate and rethink an initial statement. It’s also a good opportunity to re-emphasize the importance of critical thinking in a world overrun by fake news and low-quality content. Going further, going into detail, seeking out reliable, scientific sources – these are all demands that teachers can make today. It’s a real opportunity to take pedagogy to the next level.

ProfessorBob.ai is another way of looking at this desirable future. Its CEO, François-Xavier Hussherr, reveals in an exclusive interview, which you can read here, that

“ChatGPT is without doubt the biggest revolution in AI in the last 30 years. It is going to impose new ways of teaching… EduGPT, which we have developed, is an alternative to ChatGPT, yet very different from ChatGPT. In this tool, generative AI is coupled with extractive AI using verified sources (databases from textbooks). Above all, the answers are adapted to the learner’s academic level. To a question on democracy, a 6th grader will receive an answer on democracy in Greek antiquity (6th grade history program), while a senior will receive an answer from the senior Philosophy program.”

There remains the question of equity, which must not be overlooked. Access to these new technologies must be guaranteed for all. Training for both teachers and students must accompany these changes and the emergence of new tools.

Adapting is part of being human. Simone’s Robots are totally convinced of this !