THE FRENCH HIGHER EDUCATION IN SOME DATES

back

>>the french higher eduaction in some dates

After the French Revolution in 1789, a lot of schools were set up to meet the needs of the new industrialized society. Some of them are still in place today, such as the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole Centrale.

Until 1968, the system set up by Napoleon 1st ruled the organization of the French higher education. The Emperor gathered all the higher education establishments (secondary schools, high schools, faculties) under the same label : University. Some of them had been existing since the Middle Ages.

After the 1968 events, the higher education (excepted the grandes écoles) was deeply revamped : to create a link between education and research, universities became pluridisciplinary and autonomous, opened up to people from outside. Autonomy as a root principle in universities means that they are responsible for the courses they propose as well as the for the admission criteria.

A 1984 law accelerated the evolution. Since then, all the training proposed by schools and universities have been gathered under the control of the Higher Education Public Department which depends on different ministries (Higher Education and Rsearch, Health, Agriculture, Culture and Communication, etc.). See : Addresses.

Since 1968, the higher education establishments have been asked to promote international cooperation. Foreign students are a tradition in the life of French higher education establishments, based on certain root principles :
equality of rights for all students : the access to higher education must be identical for all students, whatever their country (but with the same level requirements) ;
will of exchanges and implementation of a real information policy aiming at ensuring the coherence between the training of foreign students and the development of university centers in their own countries ;
well-balanced distribution of all the student throughout the country to ensure a better quality of the training.

Reforms in progress Due to the need to harmonise university degrees across Europe, the French National Education Ministry has proposed a reform designed to offer 4 European grades : Baccalauréat (high school certificate) ; Degree (3 year programme) ; Masters (5 years of study) ; Doctorate (8 years of study). Universities would then have to organise their programmes around this scheme. The European Credit Transfer System has also begun to appear in France. An initial degree (a " licence ") will be worth a certain number of credits (in this case, 180 credits) and will no longer be counted in terms of the number of years of study. These credits will also be recognised abroad. This system has already been implemented in universities such as Bordeaux I and Paris IX

To help you understand how the system works, let us investigate now the various ways offered by the French higher education, the contents of the courses, the required profile and the access modes.