Farhang Gassemi is a member of the FEDE Committee and is also president of the Federation’s Human Rights Commission. He also heads a private higher education group (Cogefi) and somehow find the time to write books as well. We meet him below.
Can you tell us how your career started?
In the 1980s I wrote a PhD thesis in political science at Panthéon-Assas University and at the same time studied for a degree in management at Paris Dauphine University. In 1988 I set up my own higher education teaching group: the Cogefi Group.
Tell us about the Group.
In the past the Group has contained as many as three schools – so 700 students; since then I’ve scaled things back. We now have 200 students, 20 or so teachers and around 10 other employees in a single school specialising in management. We offer programmes from bachelor’s to master’s level.
So is it through the Cogefi Group that you became involved with the FEDE?
Exactly. The Cogefi Group has been a member of the FEDE since 1992; that makes me an FEDE old-timer. Today, as an elected member of the Committee, I always strive to come up with fresh proposals and to encourage initiatives promoting education in democratic values and citizenship. In short, I remain very active in the life of the Federation.
And yet you still find time to write and publish books?
Yes I do. Between 1983 and 2006 I published a series of books on trade unionism (in Iran, Poland and elsewhere in the world). I am also passionate about my work as auditor at the French OPQCM [office for management consultancy accreditation] within the OPQF-ISQ.
