The organization of studies in the French University system

32 LCSHD Paper Series Department of Human Development The Organization of studies in the French University system Claude Thelot November 1998 The World Bank ~~ Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Office  Human Development Department LCSHD Paper Series No. 32 The organization of studies in the French University System Claude Thelot November 1998 PapersDprepared in this series are not fornal publications ofithe Wrldd Bank. They present preliminary and unpolished results Of coutriy analysis or :research .thiat is circulated. to encourage discussioni and comment; anytcitatio and useofA this paper shoud taket account of its iprovisional character. The findings, interpretations, and conclsions iexpressed in this paper are t entirely those 4of the authorsi and' tshould not be attributedn in any vmanner teo theS World&Bank, its affiliated organization members of its EBoard of Executive Directors.or the countries they represent. The World Bank Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Office  ii  iii PREFACE Higher education in Brazil is approaching a crossroads. The old model, a publicly funded system for the few, is centered on an elite and will not serve the country's needs in the 21st century. The Government of Brazil, with the World Bank's cooperation, is exploring a range of alternatives that address the most critical issues in Brazilian higher education: * Increasing Coverage: A demographic bulge of young Brazilians is reaching university age. They will have more high school diplomas and higher educational aspirations than any previous generation. The current system provides education for less than 10 percent of the age cohort and is ill-equipped to meet the growing demands. To respond to this challenge, the higher education system will have to become more diverse, higher quality, and less expensive. * Restructuring Funding Mechanisms to Support Institutional Autonomy and Incentives for Efficiency. Rigidities throughout the higher education system have institutionalized a system whose costs are on par with those of OECD countries but whose quality is not. A reexamination of funding and regulation mechanisms, and the incentives they create, is critical to improving quality and efficiency. * The Role of the Federal Government: Provider, Funder, and Regulator of Higher Education. The last major reform of higher education took place in 1968. Currently, federal support for higher education is channeled almost exclusively to federal universities (and overwhelmingly for salaries). Little consideration has been given to the appropriate roles of the federal government in a diversified higher education system. * Quality of Instruction. Quality assurance system at the institutional and national levels are weak, rigid, and politicized. They do not encourage diversity or flexibility of the curriculum. * Stakeholders. The Political Realities of Change. Many of the system problems are well known and widely discussed within Brazil. Opponents to change in the higher community come from the country's most capable and politically mobile/influential groups and are often fortified by strong legal (even constitutional) and bureaucratic protection. Any viable policy change must strategically deal with potentially strong and well-organized political opposition. The eight papers in this series are a systematic examination of the problems and policy options for Brazilian education. This paper, by Claude Thelot, focuses on the French University system, with a particular stress on its relationships with the State, and more precisely in reference with the definition and the build-up of University curricula and degrees. It studies the following two  iv aspects: how university studies are theoretically organized and how they have been modified through recent reforms. Then, in a second part, actual practice will be considered through various aspects, as it depends on the theoretical framework mentioned before, but also departs from it. Donald Winkler Lauritz Holm-Nielsen  v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ....................................................... iii I. INTRODUCTION ...................................... ............... I II. THE THEORETICAL ORGANISATION OF UNIVERSITY STUDIES.. 3 III. A FEW COMPLEMENTARY FACTS ON THE WAY THE SYSTEM WORKS ........................................................... 6 IV. CONCLUSION ....................................................... 8 TABLES ........................................................... 10 ANNEX 1 ....................................................... 17  I. INTRODUCTION This paper focuses on the French University system, with a particular stress on its relationships with the State, and more precisely in reference with the definition and the build- up of University curricula and degrees. Yet before starting into the heart of the matter, it is important to bear in mind that universities in France are only part of tertiary education, and that, as opposed to most other countries, higher studies carried out outside the University system may be more prestigious than university studies themselves. Part of the features of the French universities can indeed be accounted for by the fact that there are non-university structures that work differently, attract other students-sometimes the most gifted-grant other degrees (engineering degrees for instance), etc. More particularly, the Grandes Ecoles structure (for Science, Art, and Business students) which can be compared either to the very best foreign universities (in the United States and the United Kingdom for example) or to business schools, stands alongside universities, works differently, and is both competitive and complementary. To put it in a nutshell, the French tertiary education system is indeed a system that has different sectors, and it is impossible to understand the way one sector works without bearing in mind the others (table 1). It is true that the University system is the largest one in terms of number. In France, university students make up three quarters of the total number of tertiary students-one would be tempted to say only three quarters of them-the rest is carrying out their studies in other structures. Understanding universities only from the inside without taking into account the Grandes Ecoles channel or the short tertiary studies given in French lycees would be incomplete and partial. As a matter of fact this is one of the reasons why it is not possible to transfer to any other country the French system of higher studies and universities as it is. To exemplify these rather general points, three major features of French universities can be made clearer so as to keep them in mind. They are direct consequences of the fact that they are part of a larger system, of tertiary education as a whole: - First, they are open. In other words they are non-selective, which means that any student with the French baccalaureat can register at any university to read any subject. The law enforces this open aspect of the system by making it compulsory for universities to accept all newcomers (only the new ones though, existing selecting processes for the following years.) Obviously this open aspect stems directly from the fact that the other sectors of the French tertiary system are shut up or selective: potential students must fill in dossiers, pass competitive exams, etc. Two consequences follow from this characteristic of French universities. On the one hand, they are the structures that have secured the massification and democratization of tertiary education for the last ten years (table 2); and on the other, the number of drop-outs in the first year of university studies is high, as this global acceptance of newcomers drives a great many new students to register in a university to start up higher studies when they are most likely to fail because their baccalaureat did not prepare them to that type of studies (even if, formally, they are entitled to enter university) (table 3); - Secondly, French universities define themselves as and claim to be places for research, in which knowledge is produced; far more than as places for teaching, in which knowledge is transmitted. This point is not particular to the French system but it is stressed. All the more so as research is also carried out outside university channels-perhaps even  2 mostly outside university channels, more particularly at the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS), in some famous non-university institutes, and in some Grandes ecoles too. This first role granted to research partly explains the strength of disciplines (and the thickness of the frontiers between disciplines), which hinders the evolution toward more pluridisciplinarity. It can also clearly be seen in the way university teachers' careers unfold, hence in what the teachers are interested in and the priorities they give to themselves. All this is in many ways directly opposed to a mass-conception of tertiary education, in particular during the first years of higher studies. The way universities work and university teachers behave can largely be accounted for by this hierarchy. - Lastly university curricula are organised in such a way as to leave very much room to students' individual work; again, this is not particularly striking, but this room is all the more important as it stands in contrast with the curricula offered in the other sectors of tertiary education. This stress on individual work also stems from the project of training students-or at least a large number of them-for research, a project directly linked to the conception of universities as places of research. It is also in keeping with the habits and traditions of universities, which mean independence, creativity, freedom in working and thinking. However, it also accounts for the feeling of puzzlement experienced by students when they enter university. Of course this freedom offered to university students in organising their own work means that they should take initiatives, and to stretch things farther it also means that part of the flexibility, the variety, the multiplicity, and the complementarity of their training will rely on them. With these few points made clearer, we can get to the heart of the matter. Two aspects will be studied in turn: how university studies are theoretically organised and how they have been modified through recent reforms. Then, in a second part, actual practice will be considered through various aspects, as it depends on the theoretical framework mentioned .before, but also departs from it. This is a short paper, and it does not pretend to tackle all the problems raised by the French university system. We tried to analyse some specific points in order to be of help in an international perspective, i.e., to help foreign pundits to think about their own university system. Just as it is impossible to transfer systematically one system to another, it is helpful to have a good knowledge of foreign systems and of the problems they raise to help to understand and solve one's own problems.  3 II. THE THEORETICAL ORGANISATION OF UNIVERSITY STUDIES 1. The general outline of the organisation of university studies can be defined in three steps which stand as follows. First step: the State defines the global framework of studies, their structure, and university degrees. The decree organising the central administration of the French ministry of national education, research and technology (October 12, 1997) can be found in the appendix below. It describes the responsibility of the State, detailing the missions of the various directorates of the ministry, in particular those of the directorate of tertiary education (article 4) and those of the directorate of planning and development (article 6). Second step: within this framework defined by the State, universities must then give concrete life to their teaching, the contents of each discipline, the organisation of courses, etc., which will vary from one university to another and from one discipline to another. This leads to each university presenting its own suggestions to the State, which in a third step will then validate with or without modifications, sometimes suggesting slight changes after examining them. Thus the State has defined the three cycles that structure university studies and the diplomas attached to them. In order to focus on the main structure, we take no account here of some particular structures inside universities, such as IUTs, IUPs, etc., even if they are quite interesting in the perspective of making university studies more job-oriented. The first cycle lasts two years and ends with a diploma (called DEUG); the second cycle also lasts two years and includes two diplomas, one for each year: the licence, at the end of the first year and the maitrise at the end of the cycle; and the third cycle leads to the doctorat, yet with diplomas at the end of its first year, one called DEA and the other DESS-which may be final diplomas, in particular the DESS. To illustrate this point, the number of diplomas delivered today (at least the main diplomas delivered not only by universities but also by the whole tertiary system) is presented in table 41 In the same line, the State has defined the rhythm of the studies and the structure of their contents. For instance, as part of the last reform of the first and second cycles in April 1997-which is being implemented at the moment- university studies must be organised in teaching units that can be capitalised, that is, that can be kept for a certain length of time. Each teaching unit must correspond to a "coherent group of teaching contents and activities" spreading over a set period of six months or semester. To give one example, the first semester of university studies, referred to as the initial semester, must be made up of three teaching units for students. One unit of basic teaching in the discipline read by students; one unit for students to discover other complementary disciplines, making it possible for them to change their future line of studies if they have or wish to; and a "unit of methodology in university work enabling to train in the methods, practices, and knowledge necessary to succeed in university studies." From this example, it is easy to see the possible degree of polyvalence or flexibility at the outset of studies when this framework is implemented: discipline polyvalence (that is, in subjects that come to complement the major one) and horizontal polyvalence (in university working methods). ' Two other tables have been added in order to give an overall view. First, the number of diploma-holders diploma by diploma (table 5) and second, their situation five years after leaving the educational system (employed as executives, clerks, or manual workers, unemployed, out of the labor market, etc.) (table 6).  4 It is then up to the universities to fill in the framework pre-defined by the State and express their wishes by proposing various courses set out with a coherence to them (at least a list with reference to the teaching units, their wording, and their contents, if possible), assessment conditions, procedures and rules for the orientation and reorientation of students at the end of each semester, etc. These propositions will vary a lot from one university to another. For example, subject to the State's ratification, the range of teaching contents for a student reading for a licence in economic and social studies will be extremely different from one university to another, even in the same geographical area. Similarly, the concrete assessment conditions will differ to a large extent. This variety of structures, contents and examination conditions accounts for the fact that, at DEUG for example, some universities should have a much higher rate of success than could be expected from their students' background, while others should have a much lower one. In their propositions, assessing conditions, and actual practices some universities appear not to be exacting enough or even to be too lax, while others seem to be too demanding or too selective; some tend to prepare a small number of students for future research, others choose to prefer mass education, tutoring, etc. This variety is quite important. The third step of the whole process is the ratification by the State of the wishes expressed by the universities. It requires to have, inside the State itself, the right competent people in the administrative services. This may turn out to be quite difficult as those people should be university teachers themselves, and will have to justify the State' s decision. This theoretical global organisation of studies, as a framework defined by the State and through the wishes expressed by the universities for State ratification, gives some flexibility to the university system and some hold on it. However even if this theoretical pattern was precisely implemented, the flexibility remains restricted to rather narrow limits. In particular, it largely remains restricted (except for specific cases in some curricula or in some disciplines like law or medical studies) to academic courses, sometimes to horizontal ones (as in the preceding example of the initial semester) and seldom to job-oriented ones. The capacity to integrate into a curriculum either teaching contents that are far from one or several major subjects in order to create some kind of pluridisciplinarity more easily, or some kind of professional teaching contents to prepare students for future jobs, is not much developed, even if it has been on the increase for the last few years. At this point one must repeat that part of the variety or flexibility of university studies rests upon the initiative of individual students themselves, who can alongside their set courses opt to follow other courses, including in other subjects and other universities-and all the more so as, theoretically, they benefit from a lot of free time or time devoted to individual work. As far as they are concerned, students from Grandes Ecoles often do so. It does not seem to be so often the case with university students, in spite of the free time they have. A good example of the way this works can be found with foreign languages. In too many curricula, foreign languages are not taught at all, and it is up to students to complete their training in languages by enrolling for an English, German, Spanish, or any other language class. A lot of university students do not take this step, so that the knowledge acquired in foreign languages before their university years or lycee years gets lost in many cases. Obviously this proceeding is not  5 satisfactory. Similarly, due to a lack of means and of organisation on a large scale, computer science courses or computer training are, in social sciences for instance, not compulsory or even lacking. This should be a priority in a necessarily job-oriented axis. The same could be said for the training to work in libraries or in documentation centres or networks. Another example of a complex and to some extent unsatisfactory situation concerns semestrialisation. As a rhythm of university studies, it is likely in itself to increase the flexibility of the system and to limit the consequences of students' failures. Indeed the 1997 reform mentioned above takes advantage of this organisation in semesters to implement, in the course of the second cycle, two quite interesting new concepts that testify to the open character as well as the growing openness and variety of university studies in France. First, the concept of a European semester (spent in any European university); and second, the concept of a unit of job experience. This unit is subject to a three-sided signed agreement among the student, the firm he/she works for, and his/her university. Its aim is to make him/her acquire professional competencies, to enlarge his/her knowledge of the working world, and to make his/her prospective professional life easier. These two particular semesters, which are not compulsory-they represent new opportunities offered to students-may be ratified as full-fledged semesters in the cycle. At first glance by making this type of innovation possible, semestrialisation is a positive measure the government was right to institute. One must admit nonetheless that this change from the annual curricula universities were used to is immense, and requires many conditions to be fulfilled before it is conclusive. More particularly, it implies that teachers restructure their courses and (develop a real capacity to) reorient students at the end of each semester. This includes outside university and other sectors of tertiary education, which is extremely difficult to set up. It also implies that examinations should not remain on an annual basis, which still are as second chance examination sessions are held in September-a proceeding that is dear to many French university students and to their unionists. This shows that, even apart from the fact that it is difficult to put into practice, the present system of semestrialisation is in itself complex and contradictory to some extent. 2. Parallel to the proceeding described above, the State and the 90 French universities (or assimilated) have been involved for the last ten years in a process of contractualisation or contract-making. Through such contracts, which are signed between the State and each university, it is endeavoured to make two notions compatible. First, that of a national framework resting upon national policies of University development, complementarity between universities, and national development-a framework the State is responsible for. Second, that of some sort of autonomy for each university as expressed in a very specific project. Without going into details, it is interesting to mention and to underline some aspects of this system as they bring about consequences on teaching contents themselves. Before drawing up the contract, a diagnosis had been established as a form of self-assessment by the university itself and as a critical appraisal of its strengths and weaknesses by the State. Even if both did not always concur, this kind of two-sided check-up, a real novelty in French habits involving the university administration and management (far  6 more than the teachers) turned out to be quite rewarding. The elements of the contract were then designed, and considered the situation as the university felt it to be and the project itself. The various concrete aspects of each university (including of course the courses it intended to give, but not the research activities that for some reason were subject to a different proceeding-something we do not find positive) were all covered by the contract. On the basis of this contract that would be discussed and agreed upon by both sides, the State committed itself to provide over several years the necessary means, particularly the required number of teaching and non-teaching staff. It is in fact because of this "over several years" clause-which conflicts with the very strong rule of a French annual budget-that this proceeding has been suspended at least temporarily as the State could not fulfil its commitments, which made universities first suspicious and eventually reluctant. Provided that this process should be better adapted to the proceeding described in the first paragraph, that the conditions created for the two partners are strong and reliable in their commitments, and that the assessment proceedings of the results obtained by universities should be well fore-established a posteriori and from the outside, such a contractual proceeding may provide a national framework (a global policy for the development of the University system) and the conditions for more autonomy for each university, which hopefully should increase. One of the features of the projects specific to each university that should emerge from a more integrated proceeding is the reinforcement of the professionalisation of university studies-of all university studies, including Art and Human Sciences, and not simply by setting up strictly professional channels, as has successfully been done for long-as this reinforcement appears to be one of the keys to the success of a mass-university. This will compel universities to improve their knowledge of the skills that are used in the working life, by creating centres that would observe the careers of their former students and by talking with employers. 3. Mentioned just above, the questions of assessing universities, their teaching contents, and teachers are crucial in particular when one tries to implement a balanced system in which flexibility and autonomy take up a full-fledged role, while being wary of public finances. It is useless to dwell too long on this aspect because the assessment of French tertiary education is certainly not what it should be. This makes it impossible, however difficult it may be theoretically, to successfully link assessment and policy. III. A FEW COMPLEMENTARY FACTS ON THE WAY THE SYSTEM WORKS Of course the French University works partly in accordance with what has just been described, but does not always conform to it. So, after sketching the theoretical outlines, it may be interesting to provide some lights on the elements, even if only briefly, that describe the actual way in which it works. As a matter of fact the autonomy given to universities is quite large, and paradoxically the State is weak. In particular, it has very few means to analyse the propositions for courses made by universities. So that the ratifying step (third step in the proceeding) is in fact a largely formal one. The wishes expressed by universities are in actual facts very often accepted without change. When they are refused or modified, the reasons  7 why are not always made known to the universities, which can then complain that the decisions were arbitrary. In addition, these wishes themselves may not be clearly informative as they do not include the contents and the general outlines of the lessons that teachers intend to teach. For instance, in the unit of teaching leading, what is the meaning to a licence of education science of the presence or the absence of a course on the economics of education? Without the outlines of the course, it is impossible to tell for sure. The State never gets these outlines-and nor do the students at the moment when they make their choices, but this is a different matter-thus it has a limited knowledge of what is contemplated. Typical are the seminars for the third cycle: very close to research and very specific to each teacher. They are a world of their own in which the State has neither the possibility nor the legitimacy to select and decide-even though it provides most of the financial means if only through teaching posts. Thus a myriad of seminars, each followed by a small number of students, so extremely costly; a variety which, even from the point of view of research efficiency, is not the best in so far as there is little room left for collective research and thinking as well as for complementarity. Avoiding this scattering is no easy task-it is yet in order to restrict it that the State has recently incited universities to create doctorate schools. This very large autonomy granted to universities and hence to university teachers in actual facts is obviously reinforced by the lack or limited existence of assessment procedures. This has an important consequence. In the same discipline university diplomas (DEUG, licence, mailtrise, etc., not mentioning doctorates-which belong to another logic) are de facto extremely different in their contents and in their value from one university to another. The nice and famous uniformity or centralisation of the French system is an illusion. It is not necessarily fair either. In a de facto split up and partly hierarchised system that does not make its variety and hierarchy known to the public nor does advertise them as it were, the least privileged students (from the social or cultural point of view) may find themselves with a handicap. The distribution of means by the State among universities is another point in which actual facts depart from theory. On the one hand the annual mode of this distribution partly relies upon set patterns where, for each discipline, the number of students plays an essential role (plus elements concerning their costs). This has two drawbacks. First, it does not take into account the quality of the various disciplines as measured by their employment potentialities. Second, it leaves little room for the specific projects of each university. On the other hand, the present situation distribution of means among universities is rather disparate in terms of equality. This is only natural after a period of huge growth of the system (newer universities having fewer means, in particular as concerns non-teaching staff), but this also means unbalance and inequality to be suppressed. De facto, this can only take place very slowly and with difficulty, as it interferes with the universities' own resources. These are very different across universities, which is normal to some extend, partly due to the university's specific policy. On the whole, the relationship between the State and universities in this respect is far from depending on a contract and on clear-cut, discussed, and ratified propositions. It still leaves too much room to two conflicting mechanisms. Some kind of automaticity on the side of students, who do not really question the usefulness of each discipline; and some kind of variety, as the size of the means that a university benefits from  8 also depends on the quality of the relationship of its president with the local environment and the State. Another aspect must be pointed out, which to some extent comes to balance the large autonomy of universities. Universities are under-staffed in management and administrative tasks. As a rule the means and more particularly non-teaching posts lack: reception, follow up, and orientation of students; university management, the capacity to open on the exterior world or the international scene, libraries, computers, information and documentation networks. All these aspects are not sufficiently present, which conflict with a democratic, mass university where students are supposed to work hard by themselves. The administrative and management understaffing makes it difficult for original projects and detailed propositions to emerge. Moreover, as managing is not considered highly as part of the teachers' job and career, the latter tends to discard it. On the whole, these establishments are under-managed. They may have become very large now that France has entered the era of mass university-the largest universities have approximately 35,000 students and in some towns the university is the main employer together with the local hospital. This situation leads to an unequal, imperfect putting into practice of the outlines drawn out by the State: semestrialisation, the capacity to orient or reorient students at the end of the first semester, the creation of professional experience units, the teaching of methods in university work, etc. All these excellent ideas may remain words in some universities needing means, appropriate tools to direct and manage them, and sometimes also initiative. As a matter of fact, the weakness in the management of universities explains why university disciplines and the corresponding inner structures of universities-the teaching and research units-are comparatively powerful. This leads to a comparative weakness in the designing and implementing of polyvalent studies, which imply pluridisciplinarity. This is easier to "bear" by the presidency of the university than by each discipline or even each structure individually. IV. CONCLUSION University has always had a very wide scope to manoeuvre when defining the contents of its teaching, if only because it was the place where knowledge was produced and not simply transmitted. In France the State is the main provider of the means granted to universities, and it has decided that the unfolding of tertiary studies should take place in a national framework. For the last few years, we have been witnessing attempts at finding some sort of equilibrium between the national framework and the autonomy of each university. The coming into life of a mass-university as well as the needs of our society and our economy make it necessary today for our teaching to be more flexible, more polyvalent, and more job- oriented. Besides, universities should be encouraged to become more autonomous. Yet these various evolutions, which are a necessity, cannot take place without at the same time: - increasing the capacity to run and manage universities; - increasing the value for teachers of teaching and managing instead of researching by taking them far more into account for career promotions; - developing the assessment of universities, contents of their teaching, and  9 their teachers; and, - probably reinforcing the capacities of the State's expertise. In these various respects the French university system still has to improve. Much progress must definitely be expected from the taking up (again) and the extension of a contractual proceeding. But the "University issue" must not be confined to the teachers or university people: all the French society must show interest in its University and not only take part in its financing. Society must contribute to the definition of the university mission, its teaching contents, etc. Apart from the relationship of universities with the other sectors of tertiary education, more particularly with the Grandes Ecoles, this raises the problem of the active role to be played by public local authorities and by employers in orienting or even running universities, which in turn raises the very tricky problem of the management of universities.  10 TABLES Table 1 Number of Establishments of Higher Education: 1997/98 (Metropolitan France) Universities and the like 87 IUTs (University Institutes of Technology) 98 IUFMs (University Institutes providing Maitrise2-level training) 26 Engineering schools forming part of universities 94 STSs (Higher Technical Classes)3 1,930 CPGE (Preparatory courses for entering the Grandes tcoles4) 468 Engineering schools that are independent of the official universities or private institutions 146 Business, management, and accounting schools 224 Schools providing training for social or health professionals 590 Schools providing advanced education in fine arts and culture 207 Other specialized schools 286 Source:Reperes et references statistiques ["Statistical Benchmarks and References"], 1998 edition, Directorate of Planning and Development, Ministry of National Education, Research, and Technology, page 47. 2 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Awarded after four years of university-level study. 3 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: The duration of studies is two years. 4 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Prestigious institutions that train engineers and other staff personnel for industry, commerce, and administration.  Table 2 Student Enrollments in Higher Education since 1960 (Metropolitan France) 1960/61 1970/71 1980/81 1990/91 1995/96 1996/97 1997/98 Universities (excluding IUT) 214,700 637,000 799,200 1,097,600 1,362,500 1,340,700 1,311,200 Average annual change (