What? You say there is a parallel to US Community Colleges in France? And Connecticut Community Colleges have a growing #VirtualExchange program with them? Those were the questions I heard at the recent conference of the Community Colleges for International Development (CCID). The answer is yes! There are 113 "Instituts Universitaire Technologique” (IUT) that provide 2-year post-secondary degrees in 24 different manufacturing and service specialties. They are an integral part of the higher education and workforce development ecosystem in France. Embedded within the public universities of France, they also have their own national association setting strategy and curricular standards. Over three years, Gazelle International has helped our CT community college faculty to partner with French IUT faculty. They use technology to create and implement classroom-based modules that French and American students complete together in a program called “CLICK” . See the following visual description of the links between the Connecticut and French partner institutions.
Let us also share a map and a brief – which describes the French IUTs and how they are organized - we developed as part of an ERASMUS+ grant proposal to support live and #VirtualExchange with a major engineering university partner in France.
