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The French education system 2
Higher education
Compared to other countries, France has an unusual and complex system
of higher education. In
virtually all countries in the world, the pinnacle of the education
system, the institutions providing the finest centres of excellence,
are universities.
Not so in France. While France has close to a
hundred universities, most of them able to hold their own as regards
teaching and research with middle-of-the-range universities in other
parts of Europe, the peak of the education pinnacle in France is
represented by the country's "Grandes
Ecoles", relatively small and
highly selective "schools" (in the American sense of the word) which
provide a cosseted higher education to the
nation's future elites - tomorrow's "haut fonctionnaires" (senior civil
servants), leaders of industry, top military brass, top politicians,
engineers, physicists and others. In spite of the national preocupation
with equality and equal opportunities, France actually has one of the
most elitist higher education systems of any country.
Grandes Ecoles are very well funded,
have small
classes and top teaching staff; indeed they (and the lycée
classes preparing students for their competitive entry exams) syphon
off a disproportionate amount of the education budget - to the
detriment
of France's universities that are considerably underfunded, compared
with international standards.
Nonetheless, despite their limited
funding, French
universities generally do a remarkably good job; and in terms of
productivity (the ratio between investment per student, quality, and
the results obtained) they must rank among the most efficient
institutions of higher education in any developed country!
Entry
into higher education:
French universities are open to all "bacheliers", that is
students who have passed their baccalauréat. However, while
some types of degree course are open to all comers (notably courses in
arts faculties and social sciences), scientific and medical courses are
usually only open to students who have passed a scientific
baccalauréat.
The baccalauréat is the gold standard,
when it comes to getting into university; but getting into a "grande
école" is a whole different ball game. Entry into many
"grandes écoles" is at "bac+2" level, i.e. the level of the
third year of university studies; and to get into a "grande
école", many students actually stay on in Lycée
for two whole years after the baccalauréat. In this respect,
Lycées are also a part of the French higher education
system, thanks to what is known as "les classes
préparatoires".
Higher
education is thus provided by three main types of institution: lycées,
universities,
and "grandes écoles".
Lycées:
Les classes
préparatoires. Lycées as
institutes of higher education. Unlike high schools in
virtually every
other country, French lycées have a role that extends beyond
the
traditional end of high school. Thus, the best and biggest
lycées all have two more years of classes corresponding to
the
first two years of higher education. The most prestigious of these are
known as "les classes
préparatoires" (or prépas), and are basically a
highly
selective alternative to the first two years of (generally unselective)
university. Students in "prépa" are in small classes, and
have
an intense programme of studies, often over 30 hours of classes a week,
plus plenty of homework; but the rewards are good, and students work
hard to succeed. "Prépas" prepare their students for entry
into the "grandes écoles" (see below),
another aspect of the French education system that has no equivalent in
other countries.
"Prépas" are the classic
illustration of the
traditional French approach to education, which involves a lot of
book-learning, long hours in the classroom, amassing of facts
and information, and less in the way
of questioning, discovery and creativity than is customary in
the
English-speaking countries and many others. After all, the
lycée
system was invented by Napoléon, as a means to train (some
would
say format) the educated but subservient elites who would run the
nation - a task in which it has been very successful until now.
Some common prépa classes are Khâgne and
Hypokhâgne (literary studies), Maths sup and Maths
spé
(mathematics), or Prépa HEC (business and commercial
studies).
For more about French Lycées, see the Primary and secondary education page
BTS:
Brevet de Technicien Supérieur. Lycées
are also responsible for providing instruction for what is the
equivalent of Higher National Diplomas (HNDs) in the UK, i.e. two-year
higher education courses, generally technologically or vocationally
oriented. BTS classes are selective entry, and as in "classes
prépas", students have a heavy load of coursework to get
through. The approach tends to be "scolaire", i.e. as in a
school, rather than "universitaire", and classes are small
(up to 30 or so). Popular BTS courses include "mechanics", "trilingual
secretairat", "tourism", and so on.
Universities.
France has 82 state universities, plus 5 Catholic universities (and a
large number of private "institutes", some of which award degrees.)
State
universities: The development of French state universities
over the past half century has been greatly hampered by a combination
of two factors: a) the very heavy role of the state in their
administration and development, and b) considerable underfunding,
compared to universities in other countries. After considerable delay,
and oppositiion to reform from within the universities themselves,
things are changing, and a law on the Autonomy of Universities was
passed in 2007, giving greater decisional power to the Presidents (vice
chancellors) of public universities - among other things.
Universities are officially known by the name of
the city in which they are located: there are thus 13 institutions
called the University of Paris, numbered from 1 to XIII; most of these
are actually in the suburbs. Many Universities have taken other names,
which they use on all their official documents; for example the Université Blaise
Pascal in Clermont Ferrand, or the Université de Provence
in Aix. Universities are divided into faculties that are officially
called "UFRs" (Unités de Formation et de Recherche), though
the word "Faculté" is still often used - as in
Faculté des Sciences or Faculté des Lettres.
Universities also include other "components"
(composantes), such as IUTs
(Institut Universitaires de Technologie) which offer two-year diplomas
(called DUT) and also degrees; or IAEs,
(Instituts d'Administration des Entreprises) - business management
institutes, with a special status, which have been set up in recent
years in response to an awareness that universities had largely missed
out on the massive expansion in demand for higher education business
courses - demand that had been taken up (with varying degreees of
academic quality) by private business schools, that have flourished
throughout France.
Degrees:
Universities award three types of degree, in line with the European
"Bologna" system. The first degree (3 years) is the Licence, the first
postgraduate degree (5 years' study) is the Masters (using the
English term), and the final degree, obtained after at least eight
years' study, is the Doctorate.
Degree courses must all be approved by the ministry for higher
education, and every four years all universities now go through a
horrendously bureaucratic and time-consuming process known as
"habilitation".
Grading:
Degrees at Licence and Masters levels come with various grades: as
throughout the French education system, marks are graded on a scale of
0 to 20, with 10 being the pass mark. A pass degree is one where the
student has an average mark of between 10 and 11.99; at first degree
level, the majority of students get a pass degree. From 12 upwards,
students receive a "mention"
: Assez Bien from 12 to 13.99, Bien from 14 to 15.99, and
Très Bien from 16 upwards. Any general "mention"
would tend to correspond at least to a 2:1 (upper second) degree from a
UK university. In most university departments, a general 'Mention
très bien" would not normally be awarded to more than 3% of
students, often far less - so it is really something quite exceptional
on a graduate's CV.
Graduation ceremonies do not exist in French
universities. However, some university departments have introduced
unofficial ceremonies, notably for Masters graduates.
Administration:
Universities, which are under the theoretical control of the local
"Rectorat" (Education Authority), are run by a Board (Conseil
d'Administration - CA), presided over by an elected Vice Chancellor,
the "Président". Présidents
d'université are elected by the CA for a period of 4 years,
once renewable. The CA is made up of elected representatives of the
teaching staff (about 50% of members), of administrative staff and
students, plus external members representing local interests.
Private
universities: According to an old French law, no private
institution can call itself a "university"; but this does not stop the
Catholic universities from doing so.
Catholic
universities: As with state universities, there is often
an official name (such as Institut Catholique de Lyon) and the common
name that most people, and the institutions themselves, use (such as
Université Catholique de Lyon). Catholic universities offer
the same range of degree courses as state universities, and students
can freely move between the two systems.
Other
private institutions; these tend to call themselves
"schools", and include some of the "grandes écoles" (see
below), plus a whole range of private establishments offering business
degrees, technical qualifications and other courses. To offer a
"degree", a school must have its courses recognised by the Ministry, in
the same way as public universities.
Les Grandes Ecoles.
These are the pinnacle of the French education system; students get in
by competitive examination (concours), the institutions are relatively
small, and classes in them small too. Many of the teaching staff in
"grandes écoles" are professionals or else academics from
neighbouring universities, who do extra teaching at rates well in
excess of the hourly rate paid in universities.
The most famous Grande Ecole is "Polytechnique", also
known as "X", which was founded in 1794 as a school of public
engineering. It comes under the responsibility of the Ministry of
Defence, and students wear ceremonial military uniform, with tricorn
hats, for official occasions, such as graduation. Students follow 4
years of study, including a strong general science culture, and French
students have the status of army officers. Polytechnique is reputed as
one of the world's top "universities", and runs exchanges with other
institutions in the same league: MIT, Harvard, Stanford,
Oxford, ICL, and others.
Other famous Grandes Ecole include the Ecole des Mines, Ecole Normale
Supérieure (the top institution for arts
subjects, originally for training teachers for lycées), and
world-class business schools such as HEC (Hautes Etudes
Commerciales) and INSEAD
(European Institute of Administration).
Academics and Research.
Most academics in French higher education have the status of
"enseignant-chercheur" (teacher-researcher), and do both teaching and
research. Research in French universities has become far more
structured in recent years than in the past, and nowadays all
enseignants-chercheurs must belong to a "laboratory"; laboratories come
in all fields , from nuclear physics to mediaeval English literature.
There are two grades of tenured enseignants-chercheurs in
French universities, Maîtres
de conférence (corresponding to lecturers and
senior lecturers) and professors.
To gain appointment at either level, a candidate
must go through an arcanely French procedure known (as for degree
courses) as "habilitation". Foreign nationals can go through the
habilitation process, but it is something that must be initiated at
least a year before the candidate hopes to take up a teaching position.
To become a professor, a maître de conférence or
professor from another country, must go through an even more complex
habilitation, for which it is necessary to write what amounts
to a second thesis. As a consequence of this system, foreign academics
– and even French academics hoping to return from abroad,
notably the USA – cannot enter the French university system
with anything like the ease of international mobility that
exists in most other countries, another factor that has been
detrimental to the development of French universities. There have been
many cases of French universities finding it impossible to recruit
highly qualified academics - French or foreign - to
professorships, due simply to their not having the required
"habilitation", or not getting it in time.
Other
teaching staff: There are two other common categories of
teaching staff in French universities; those known as PRAGs (qualified
secondary teachers), who have no research requirement, and ATER - the
equivalent of graduate teaching assistants - who are usually completing
their doctoral thesis.
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