International News

FranceFirst steps in university reform”Why in France are there no campuses worthy of the name, no sports grounds, and another extraordinary thing: no libraries that open on Sundays?” Thus President Nicolas Sarkozy on his country‚s sclerotic universities. For an ambitious president, these might seem modest goals. But it is a measure of the universities‚ dire condition that they seem revolutionary. France has 82 universities, teaching 1.5 million students. All are public; none charges tuition fees; undergraduate enrollment charges are a tiny š 165 (Rs.9,000). All lecturers are civil servants. Universities cannot select students, who can apply only to ones near them.The results speak for themselves. Not a single French university makes it into the world‚s top 40, as ranked by Shanghai‚s Jiao Tong University. The French elite opts instead for grandes ecoles such as the Ecole Nationale d‚ Administration, which cater to a minuscule 4 percent of the student population. Little wonder that Sarkozy sees university reforms as urgent. Valerie Pecresse, the higher education minister, will soon put a law to parliament. Though it frees universities in some ways, it leaves their worst rigidities untouched.Ms. Pecresse‚s main idea is autonomy. Each university‚s governing body will shrink from 60 to 20-30. University presidents will be allowed to spend their budgets as they wish, including higher pay to recruit or retain star professors. They will be able to offer jobs more quickly: the creaking central calendar now means it can take over a year to finalise an offer, by which time good candidates have gone abroad. Universities will be permitted to raise private money; students to enroll anywhere. For the first time, universities will own and manage their own property. In exchange, universities will share an extra š 5 billion (Rs.27,500 crore) over the five years to 2012.”For the past 20 years, we‚ve never succeeded in reforming universities,” argues Pecresse. “These are revolutionary changes.” Yet the reform leaves out two critical elements. First, tuition fees. To preserve equal access, there are no plans for them; universities will not even be able to raise enrollment fees. Given the strains on France‚s public finances, and ambitious plans for better campus facilities, this looks unsustainable in the long run. The second gap is selection. An early version of Pecresse‚s law allowed universities to select students at entry for Masters‚ degrees. But this was considered so controversial that, at the first hint of resistance, it was quietly dropped. The more pressing issue of students selection at undergraduate entry was never even put on the table.As things stand, the system relies mainly on selection through failure. Anybody who passes the school-leaving baccalaureate exam can enroll at university. Yet roughly half of those who do drop out later. Unsurprisingly, lecturers are half-hearted about teaching in overcrowded amphitheatres filled with half-motivated psychology and sociology students. It is a vast waste of time and resources.BritainGlobal vocational education initiativeA new research body intended to gather information about good skills training worldwide is being set up by City & Guilds, London. The…