The System of Sandwich Courses in Higher Education at the Heart of Structuring a Small Island Territory: Lessons Learned from the Pioneering Example of The CFA University in the Corsican Region

Abstract

The specificity of the island economy of Corsica is characterized by the ascendancy of very small farmers and producers, of tradespeople which compose 95 % of its entrepreneurial fabric. The fact remains that in the era of the globalization, this territory mediterranean islander of reduced size is completely involved in a problem of attractiveness in search of foundation to perpetuate its dynamics of growth.In this context, the politics of promotion and welcome of the investments geographically mobile presents a multidimensional character in which the socioeconomic environment and the existence of qualified human resources constitute fundamental parameters. For that purpose, the existence of a plan of human capital investment can establish an unprecedented opportunity to engage a virtuous trajectory of territorial development.It’s precise in this perpective that the University vocational training center (CFA UNIV) in the Corsican region wishes, since its creation in January, 2009, to highlight the occupational integration of the students-alternants of the University of Corsica, as assets of valuation of the characteristic cardinal parameters of a territory in phase of structuring (simultaneous growth of the capacity of employability and the quality of the occupational integration of its human resources, massive evolution of the degree of skills’ acquisition in direct links with needs emanating from the territory on the subject, fluidity of the transfert of the knowledge mastering thanks to the sandwich course training, sustainable raising awareness to the entrepreneurship...).After highlighting the specific features of University of Corsica’s sandwich training programme as pivotal to Corsica island’s Regional Vocational Development Programme Roadmap [‘CPRDF’] strategy, this paper brings an analysis of the lessons learned from the pioneering example of the CFA UNIV in the Corsican region in the perspective of a dynamic conception of the Corsican territory’s pattern of structuring and attractiveness.