In France, Quality vs. Egalit

By Ellie McGrath

A plan for university reform challenges an elitist system

Springtime in Paris this year has carried more than a whiff of the May days of 15 years ago. University students, occasionally joined by professors in ermine-trimmed robes, have taken to the streets; at times the air has been filled with hurtling rocks and police tear gas. At issue: the Socialist government's proposals to reform higher education. President Franc,ois Mitterrand included the overhaul of French universities in his campaign platform two years ago. Now his Education Minister, Alain Savary, has introduced a plan to open up higher education to more students and alter the system to make it more democratic. But by sharpening the inherent conflict between quality and equality, the plan has touched off a two-week filibuster in the National Assembly, polarized the university community, and called into question some of the fundamental tenets of the country's educational system.

Many of the forces that have been blamed for a decline in American education have also been at work in France. After the protests of 1968, university reforms were enacted that moved toward providing equal opportunity to all young people. Within a few years, primary other things, the government increased the number of universities from 22 to 65. While many talented but underprivileged students were able to attend a university for the first time, thousands of underprepared students were also swept through the halls of academe. French universities expanded rapidly: from 385,000 students in 1966 to 745,000 in 1974 to nearly 1 million today. In the late 1970s, as France's baby-boom generation was attending universities, more than 40% of the country's 1 million unemployed were in the 18-to-23 age group. Since then, the French economy has suffered many setbacks, including this year's devaluation of the franc. Today the same age group accounts for roughly half of the country's 2.1 million unemployed. Students who once might have used the university system as a steppingstone have found themselves in limbo.

At the same time, the 1968 reforms did little to change many traditional characteristics of the French education system. While the public schools are renowned for their ability to teach basic intellectual skills and transmit a distinctive culture, they are still criticized by progressives for their lack of breadth and creativity. A centralized bureaucracy continues to rule the schools, with fairly rigid curriculums and exams. Though French society as a whole prides itself on its democratization, the schools remain hierarchical and elitist. Separation of social classes remains strong and tends to be reinforced by the routing of students along various academic or vocational "tracks" throughout their school careers.

By all indications, the French system discriminates against the poor and provincial. In Paris, for instance, three times as many students are enrolled in higher education (as a percentage of the population) as in Limousin, a region in central France. Despite the 1968 reforms, France has maintained a two-tier system of higher education. There are some 300 grandes ecoles, small and highly competitive institutions that accept only about 9% of all postsecondary students and whose graduates constitute the elite of French government and industry. (Tuition depends on scholastic merit and ability to pay.) Although business and professional classes make up only 7.7% of the French population, their offspring compose 41% of grandes ecoles classes; the children of workers compose 8%. The 75 tuition-free regular universities, where the majority of advanced French students go, were once named for towns, but are now simply assigned numbers. Classes run as large as several hundred, and there is a 60% dropout rate. The diploma, or deug (diplome d'etudes universitaires generales), granted after two years, complains one graduate, "entitles you to sweep the street."

Under the 1968 reform, individual universities were allowed to set their own admissions policies, but Education Minister Savary's new proposals essentially would open the universities to anyone who wants to attend. A more general education would be provided during the first two years. Admission to the third year would be limited by a formula combining the university's ability to accommodate students and the projected number of jobs available for majors in a particular field. In some cases, third-year admissions would be decided by competitive exams. In addition, university governing councils would be diversified from the present composition of students and faculty to include "outsiders," like businessmen, thus giving community groups more influence.

The Savary proposals are perceived by many sectors of the university population as a threat. Professors are concerned that a more open university system would increase their work load and that outside members added to the governing councils would diminish their control over the universities. The privileged students of the more restrictive universities fear that their schools' standards would be diluted by the underprepared. Nor are the objections all conservative in outlook. Leftist students, including many from the working class, complain that admissions exams after two years would merely delay the rejection that now confronts them at the threshold of university education.

The highly selective pattern in French education begins in primary and secondary schools, although these institutions are not affected by the Savary proposals. At age six, all students enter ecole primaire and for the next five years follow a common curriculum: nine hours of French, six hours of math, five hours of physical education and seven hours divided among natural science, history, geography, art, manual arts and "moral and civic education."

Gone are the days, however, when Frenchman could look at his watch and know that in every school in the country, children would be studying a particular chapter of a particular book. Despite the instructions issued by the Ministry of Education, teaching varies widely from classroom to classroom throughout the country. Typical is the diversity within the Ecole Annexe de l'Ecole Normale des Instituteurs de Paris, a public primary school: children in one second-level class are made to sit up straight and arduously copy lessons from the blackboard; in another, they are allowed to mill around the classroom and speak more freely. But virtually all emerge with a solid foundation in the basics.

At age eleven, French children face a decisive phase of their education. They enter what is called college, and are considered to be in an "observation" cycle for two years. At the end of this period, teachers sort them into those who will get vocational training and those who will go to a lycee for university preparation. Says Monique Bertin-Mourot, a press officer at the Ecole des Parents, an organization that deals with family and school problems: "Parents know that if the child doesn't get the right orientation early on, he'll end up in one of the classes poubelles [garbage-can classes] instead of getting to hec [short for Hautes Etudes Commerciales, a prestigious business school] or Ecole Polytechnique [a grande ecole]. It's highly unfair to ask a teen-ager to know what he wants to do with his life by the time he is 13, but that's exactly what the system does."

Even students who are accepted into lycees at the age of 16 must decide on one of several tracks. The "A" section, once the pride of French education with its curriculum of philosophy and literature, has lost out in popularity to more science-oriented programs. The "C" section for math and physical sciences has become the chief path for aspiring engineers and scientists and for those who want to enroll in the hec. Says one mother: "There's terrible pressure on the children to go into the scientific or economic divisions. Anyone who goes into the literary section is considered obviously substandard."

The three years of lycee are devoted to preparing for the baccalaureate exam, the nationwide test that determines at what level a student can enter the university. There is a bac given for each lycee track. The typical exam schedule involves ten hours of tests over a two-week period. All written exams are of the essay type (sample question: "Compare and contrast the roads to power of Hitler and Mussolini"), and most bacs culminate in an oral exam. To enter the grandes ecoles, students must take another set of tests called concours, which generally demand an additional two years of preparation. The time is often well spent: if a student graduates from a grande ecole, he is virtually assured a good job and comfortable station in life.

The Savary reforms would diminish the importance of the bac, since high test scores would no longer be required for the first two years of university education. It was announced this spring that the results of next year's bacs would not include the traditional levels of distinction, such as "very good" or "good." To many French educators, watering down the bac is as outrageous as watering down a Chateau Mouton-Rothschild. Says Guy Bayet, president of the university professors' association: "The bac is the only way you can oblige students to follow a program and acquire basic knowledge. Now that it has been devalued or so-called broadened, all we need is no bac at all! If the bac is abolished, then there's nothing left."

Surprisingly, despite the influx of new students since 1968, the expansion of higher education in France has not kept pace with that in other industrial countries. In percentage of 18-to 23-year-olds attending universities, France has dropped from third to eighth place. Furthermore, France has not adjusted its education system to the country's economic needs. While analysts estimate that France should be training 40,000 engineers, there are only 14,000 students enrolled in engineering programs. The Savary reforms would attempt to correct such problems.

As the National Assembly debate has dragged on, Socialist sponsors of the proposals have conceded several points: the status of the grandes ecoles will not be altered; fewer outsiders will be put on university governing councils; third-year admissions exams will be applied only to specialized training. If the Socialist bill is approved by the National Assembly this month, as is expected, some of the reforms could take effect early in the next school year. Meanwhile, the university students have disappeared from the streets, and their absence illustrates an enduring French reality. A headline in Le Quotidien de Paris explains: EXAMS COME FIRST.

--By Ellie McGrath. Reported by William Blaylock and Bill Hackman/Paris

With reporting by William Blaylock, Bill Hackman This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.