The growing awareness of students facing environmental and societal issues is very often not materialized by their training, and therefore in the rest of their career. Based on this observation, and in a desire for systemic change, ChangeNOW and Les Echos START, have just produced the first edition of the ranking of universities and schools to change the world.
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According to Nelson Mandela, “ education is the most powerful weapon that can be used to change the world “. A principle seems to be shared by ChangeNOW and Les Échos START, with the audit of Deloitte, at the origin of the first edition of the ranking of universities and schools to change the world. Out of 269 higher education establishments approached, 48 played the game, “ most of whom had already taken transition steps, Explain Santiago lefebvre, co-founder and CEO of ChangeNOW. Our desire is not really to point the finger at the bottom of the ranking but on the contrary to promote the initiatives that meet the environmental and societal issues, and to build this transition with them “.
A conscience to integrate into a career
The idea was born in October 2019 during the Student COP1. Santiago Lefebvre was there and the question he asked the audience, “ who is afraid of the future? He was surprised to see a very large majority raise their hands. ” This is a real problem, because students are aware of environmental and societal issues, but do not necessarily have the means to act accordingly in their career then », He specifies. An observation that echoes the Student manifesto for an ecological awakening, signed in 2018 by nearly 30,000 students from more than 400 higher education establishments in France, but also to the report of Shift Project published in March 2019, which highlighted that only 11% of training courses addressed socio-ecological issues in an unavoidable way.
41 criteria, 6 themes
To establish this classification, a questionnaire of 41 criteria gathered in six themes:
- density of impact within the program (71 points);
- alumni network and access to the labor market in impact (10 points);
- strategy and publication of objectives (14 points);
- diversity and equal opportunities (33 points);
- involvement of student associations (13 points);
- academic excellence and employability (27 points).
The absence of universities in this ranking is explained according to Santiago Lefebvre by the fact of a governance model different from schools and a stranglehold on programs that depends less on them. The desire is also subsequently to be able to broaden the consultation to other types of courses such as design or architecture.
Stimulate systemic change
With an overall average of around 80 points out of the 168 possible, there is significant room for improvement. According to Santiago Lefebvre, “ this is a first edition, it would have been surprising if the scores were more consistent, but it gives them ideas of avenues to explore such as the integration of environmental issues which remains mostly the weak link. This type of ranking is, in our opinion, a good way to stimulate systemic change, that is to say not to alter academic excellence but on the contrary to supplement it by taking new issues into account. “. The stake is also to help students to better orient themselves towards training which corresponds to their aspirations.
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