Here is an article from the nytimes on why being a student in France is close to unbearable.
People often ask me why I left Paris to come to Nothwestern for my Phd – the simple answer is money. Computers, stipend, access to professors, clean buildings, resources etc. And a degree that counts for something. As much as I loved the people and the city, I needed something a bit more serious..
May 13, 2006 at 3:30 pm
You should have said: why being a student in a French university is unbearable. The grandes écoles are another story, as the story mentions. If all French people were educated in universities then France would be in a far worse state.
This country flagrantly has the most unjust higher education system in the rich world, far worse than the United States; but try getting a French person to recognize that! For what it’s worth, though, given that for most people university is a meaningless ritual step on the way to getting a job that has virtually nothing to do with the content of their courses, which themselves are typically banal exercises in obedience and the use of rudimentary intellectual skills, there may be a case to be made for doing it on the cheap. (That doesn’t go for preparation for work in academic research, on the other hand, and on that score the French system is a total disaster, speaking from first-hand experience.)
Another thing: the author holds the typical North American view that the only way to make a system work is for individuals to pay for what they get more or less directly as much as possible. It’s convenient to cite France in this context because the French system clearly fails on many, many counts as an alternative. Examples from Scandinavia typically blast the arguments about the supposed faults of collective funding and public over private based on France to smithereens; I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that held when it comes to universities too.
The author writes that “[m]ost students are required to attend the universities closest to their high schools.” Huh?
May 13, 2006 at 3:38 pm
The conclusion is unbearably smug, no?
June 7, 2006 at 8:23 pm
(That link now leads to a paid article. Here’s another link to the article.)
Perhaps typical of NYT pieces these days, this article is rather detailed without being edifying and somewhat provocative without being thought-provoking. It’s also very ethnocentric.
Too bad, though, as the issue would merit a thorough analysis.
Coming from French-speaking institutions outside of France and currently connected with academic institutions in the U.S., my personal perspective is quite different. Not that the issues with the French system are at all surprising to me. But comparison with the United States doesn’t really bring the issue forward.
As Paul says, Scandinavian institutions could provide more interesting models. My experience in Switzerland and Quebec is also significantly different from what is described in the article. Not that any one of those post-secondary educational systems is perfect. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. But post-secondary education is not limited to France and the United States. In fact, France and the U.S. are isolated cases in today’s educational world. What might even be surprising to many people is that those two countries are often much more similar than different. For instance, the extremely high prestige afforded a precious few institutions is a striking feature of both educational systems (Grandes écoles, Ivy League…). It might exist in other places (say, England) but, at least, it’s not characteristic of universities in Quebec. In Canada generally, most academic institutions have much of the same status, despite attempts by McLean’s to rank universities every year (à la Princeton Review). While the rankings have some effect, they are much less restrictive than what exists in either the U.S. or France.
Also, faculty members across Canada get almost exactly the same salary for the same position, irrespective of their host institution. Disparities in salaries exist at many other levels but they usually don’t distinguish one institution from the rest.
Will probably post a blog entry about this pretty soon.
September 1, 2006 at 8:17 pm
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