In Val-d’Oise, after the liquidation of the Smart University, here is the connected university

She is reborn from her ashes! Inaugurated in 2021, the Smart University of Taverny (Val-d’Oise) was unable to reopen its doors in September 2023, following the liquidation of the Hub of Success, which will take place a few months later.

Result: more than thirty students on the floor. A hard blow for these young people but also for the municipality which had actively mobilized to respond to a call for projects from the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, as part of the deployment of 100 Connected Campuses, in order to implement places, in collaboration with the State, this educational unit within a working-class neighborhood, alongside Cy Cergy Paris University.

Objective: to help young people who have failed post-Bac admission or who have abandoned their studies to resume them. “This allowed two cohorts of nearly twenty-five students (2021-2022 and 2022-2023) to return to studies or initiate professional retraining,” underlines the municipality.

The 130 m2 premises where the pharmacy was previously installed, resembling a coworking space, thus offered the possibility to young people, from 18 years old but without age limit, holders of the Bac or a Daeu (diploma access to university studies), to resume training to go towards a Bts, a License, a Master, etc.

“The Town of Taverny could not see this establishment and the mission it had fulfilled since its opening disappear; municipalization then appeared to be the one and only viable solution,” it says at the town hall. “It’s a daring and unexpected choice at a time when communities most often outsource missions for which they are not specialized.”

Believing in its project, the City turned to the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, the Caisse des Dépôts but also CY University, to support it in this reopening which will take place at the start of the school year in September.

“Taverny is the only municipality that has committed to this approach, which is praised by all.”

Adapted courses

Like the Smart University, the Connected University is a third place of education which is aimed at those aged 18 and over (and without age limit), holders of the Bac/Daeu or wishing to take a Daeu

(university access diploma) or higher education training: BTS, license, master, etc.

“It is thus possible to integrate training among more than 1,000 offered and certified (partnerships with the CNED and more than 32 universities),” underlines the town hall.

Please note that although registration at the Connected University is free, the cost of the training remains the responsibility of the students.

Hub of success, fusion and disillusionment

Located on the Saint-Christophe campus, in Cergy, the Success Hub was created by regional advisor (Udi) Benjamin Chkroun on March 18, 2019 in an associative form. This association aimed to create an ecosystem of guidance and professional integration for as many people as possible and through a set of inclusion and mobilization mechanisms. The Hub was born from the merger of several entities: the Second Chance Schools (E2C) of Val-d’Oise, Yvelines, Seine-et-Marne; the Ariane association of Saint-Leu-la-Forêt and the local Nord Val-d’Oise mission of Persan-Beaumont. The liquidation of the structure was pronounced by the Pontoise judicial court on January 23. Consequence of an abysmal debt of 3 million euros and poor management of the management singled out by elected officials of the Île-de-France Regional Council.

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