Sure. First of all, as Michèle mentioned, there are “Grandes écoles”. A rapid calculation convinced that they were about 150 of those (more on them below). Then, there are what we call technological institute (there are about 120 of those), then “schools” (a prime example of a “school” in France would be an institution where you train to become a nurse; schools might or might not be part of universities), then some institutions which deliver “qualified technician certificate” and which are physically found in high-schools but are higher education institutions (at least 200 of those, perhaps many more, I don’t really know). All in all, universities account for slightly more than half of students in higher education institution. Also, I think one has to realize that the average french university tends to be quite big, whereas I am guessing that there are numerous relatively small american colleges.

Is there a good run-down of how the Grandes Écoles operate?

One peculiarity of the French system is that the most prestigious higher education institutions are not universities at all but relatively small schools (think a few hundred students per year) which generally require an entrance exam (more precisely, a concours) to enter. A grande école usually is specialized in one academic field (sciences, or business, or administration etc.). The best french high school and undergraduate students tend to go there. To enter a good deal of those écoles, one has first to prepare this entrance exam for one or more usually two years in special institutions called preparatory classes. Note that contrary to many countries, doing two years in those classes then entering a “grande école” is the most prestigious academic choice, not something for failing students. Usually, one stays three years in a “grande école” and goes out with a master degree (2 years of classes plus 3 years of école). Among the famous (in France) grandes écoles are Polytechnique, Centrale, Mines in the sciences HEC, ESSEC in business and Sciences Po/ENA in political sciences but there are many more in various academic fields. One very peculiar grande école is the “École Normale Supérieure” (ENS) which is very small in size, very competitive to enter in and which prepares to research and teaching.

Now the really surprising fact is that “grandes écoles”, though clearly more prestigious at the undergraduate and master level, do not in general deliver PhD., and are certainly not the most prestigious research institutions, when research is done there at all, because research faculties are usually very few (the exception here being ENS). So in some sense, Polytechnique is the MIT, but much smaller and without a PhD. program, so in fact not the MIT at all.

Why not? The US had more colleges in 1702 than England did at that time. The colonies had three colleges (Harvard, William & Mary, Yale) and England only had two. By the time the third English university was founded (1820’s, there’s at least three major claimaints to the title), there were more than 25 American colleges or universities. Remember that most American states have at least two different upper education systems: the doctorate granting university (usually called “University of [name of state], [name of town]” or some variation) and a lower tier state university system (usually called “[name of state] State University at [name of town]”.

My college town had five different liberal arts colleges in one town – admittedly, that was Claremont, but none of those five colleges would be concievable in France.

I am not as familiar with the French system as I should be. Is there a good run-down of how the Grandes Écoles operate?

“…academic reforms with the explicit or implicit goal of raising academic standards and competing with the giant system of American higher education. Progressive academics interpret this movement as a neo-liberal-inspired reform movement to foster competition among universities and academics, and one where the logic of publish and perish is becoming more omnipresent.”

That I wonder a) if academic standards should not, indeed, be raised; and b) if a little ‘publish or perish’ might do some good here.

I will also throw out there, for discussion, the suggestion that, like most French militant action, this concerns the protectionist response of an entrenched corporatist elite, and offers nothing, literally nothing, that would ameliorate the real problems restricting educational attainment for excluded groups within French society. Let us always remember that France has got one of the lowest rates of Trade Union membership of all developed countries, and a pretty high and persistent rate of youth unemployment. They talk a good game, I’ll admit, but the numbers speak for themselves.

My guess is that, while the U.S probably does have more institutes of higher learning than France (probably due to the legacy of New England independent centers of learning, the Morrill college system, etc. vs. the more centralized French state), that the proportion and number of what we in the U.S would call “research 1” universities and their elite student bodies probably isn’t that different.

Can these numbers be right? France has 3% as many universities as the US? Are there some other sorts of comparable institutions that are not being counted?

Progressive scholars certainly worry about the Bologna agenda, but I think they are a minority (an active one probably but still) in the protest movement. Even very conservative, some would self-describe as reactionary, researchers took a very active role (see QSF for instance) because 1) researchers in general are sick and tired of working for months with the government to devise a reform acceptable to all parties only to see laws and decrees come-up which bear no relationship at all with what was discussed 2) the last law was really egregious in its attack on academics capacity to define academic excellence with their own criteria.

One last thing, though I suscribe to everything Michèle Lamont wrote, I think it could give an exaggerated image of the difference between CNRS and universities to someone alien to the system. In my field at least, CNRS employees work mostly in joint unit with university faculties, so that any attack on, or more neutrally reform of, one greatly impacts the other.

In Australia, there is no formal role at all for the department (these days, mostly called a school and often an interdisciplinary mishmash created for administrative convenience), except that appointments committees (these are different for each job) will include some staff members. And, in a lot of places, though not at UQ I’m happy to say, there’s no effective role either. The first you (where you = “assistant/associate/full professor, but not head of school”) find out about an appointment (or dismissal, though they are much rarer) is when you get the email annnouncing it.

Anyway, sorry for derailing the thread, but it’s worth noting that this isn’t just a French, or European, problem.

If I proposed, for example, that appointment and tenure decisions should be made by the faculty in each department, with only a marginal capacity for the Dean to overrule them, I’m sure this would be interpreted as evidence that I was still dreaming of ‘68 in Paris. And if I suggested that major internal reorganisations should be undertaken once a century or so (as at Harvard, for example), it would be seen as the kind of resistance to change that is typical of old-fashioned academics clinging to the Oxbridge model.