FRANCE: Differences Arise Over Education Law

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Michael Deibert

PARIS, Aug 27 2007 (IPS) - The government of President Nicolas Sarkozy announced after it was swept into power this spring that its policies would bring a "tranquil rupture" with many cherished traditions, particularly in education.

With France&#39s National Assembly giving the nod late last month to an overhaul of higher education, the government seems on its way to making good on this controversial refrain.

The legislature, dominated by Sarkozy&#39s Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) party and its allies, gave higher education institutions the right to control their budgets, and approved creation of additional university bureaus to help graduates find employment.

Some educationists see the bill as a welcome first step.

"The kind of thrust of these reforms is something that we would see as rather welcome and much needed," says David Crosier, programme director of the European University Association (EUA) in Brussels. "But in many ways it&#39s a question in France of how far it is possible to go given the constraints of the system."

The law talks about autonomy but "all it really does is add the possibility of institutions controlling their own budgets, which for most institutions would be conceived as normal," says Crosier. "It doesn&#39t address the whole civil service status of teachers, and you can&#39t have a genuinely autonomous educational system if it&#39s staffed by people who are civil servants."

The Sarkozy government has thus far been vague about the financial implications of the new law. The President has picked his first battle with unions over a new labour law, leaving radical transformation of education for a later date.

One card playing in Sarkozy&#39s favour, observers say, is a general sense that France&#39s system of education has already largely failed the country&#39s most disadvantaged citizens, and thus may be ripe for re-imagining.

"There&#39s a huge difference between the specialised, very selective schools mainly for the elite on the one hand, and the general, public universities which are non-selective on the other hand," says Tom Schuller, head of the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation at the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a grouping of 30 wealthy nations. "You have a very clear picture of a very high-performing but narrow grandes Ècoles (elite schools) system and a struggling, under-resourced public university system."

According to 2004 figures from the Institut National de la Statistique et de Études Économiques, an estimated 60,000 French youths have yearly exited the French school system over the last decade without certificates such as the all-important baccalauréat, or bac, that qualifies students for entry into a university.

Of these, some 40 percent are estimated to be jobless. Unemployment stands at 8.6 percent according to EU figures, with one in four young people unemployed. That figure can rise to 50 percent in the banlieues, as the poor suburbs that ring many French cities are called.

In response to the Sarkozy government&#39s moves, France&#39s Conférence des Présidents d&#39Université, some of whose members have been supportive of the bill, released a statement declaring itself "pleased with the adoption of the law relating to freedoms and responsibilities for the universities." The statement went on went on to say, though, that "a law of budgetary programming is necessary more than ever."

France has been criticised for an over-centralised system of grandes écoles that recycle a political and economic elite while failing to address the needs of students of modest backgrounds.

One such, the Institut d&#39Études Politiques de Paris (colloquially referred to as Sciences Po), counts among its alumni Sarkozy&#39s two immediate predecessors, Jacques Chirac and François Mitterrand, as well as over a dozen prime ministers. Sarkozy, who attended the more downmarket University of Paris X-Nanterre, failed the entrance exam at Sciences Po, sabotaged by his shaky English, and went on to become a lawyer before entering politics.

Another of the grandes École, the École Nationale d&#39Administration (ENA) created by Charles de Gaulle at the end of World War II, has also watched a parade of future presidents, prime ministers and cabinet officials pass through its doors.

Some critics fear the new bill opens the way for a sharp increase in fees at public universities, while making few provisions to help students of more modest means. The left-wing opposition voted against the measure en masse.

The main student group, the Union Nationale des Étudiants de France (UNEF), said the bill did not adequately address the funding needs of universities, and that "the concerns of the students remain extremely strong as to the consequences of this law."