French Republic has 83 state-supported universities in addition to good over a i G m undergraduate students inwards university. After visit...
French Republic has 83 state-supported universities in addition to good over a i G m undergraduate students inwards university. After visits over several years to i of these universities in addition to conversations alongside faculty in addition to students, however, I get got come upward away alongside unopen to troubling impressions, peculiarly inwards the humanities. The crux of the apparent job is a pervasive lack of job for undergraduate students' learning outcomes on the role of the universities in addition to many of the regular faculty.
Part of this job derives ultimately from a chronic lack of funding for the universities. Facilities on many campuses are decrepit, in addition to the ratio of students to faculty is quite high. Students are admitted to the academy in addition to are charged real depression tuition; but sufficient populace resources are non made available to let the academy to offering them a high-quality, challenging education.
Another role of the job is an over-emphasis on enquiry over teaching. Research achievement is sure enough an of import national goal. But at that spot is a aeroplane of enquiry fetishism that seems sometimes to overwhelm the other values of the academy inwards France, including character of teaching in addition to learning. This over-emphasis on enquiry inside the academy is flora at the aeroplane of the ministry. And it seems to percolate downward equally well, to private campus administrations in addition to to private faculty. The impression i gets is that merely enquiry accomplishment is valued, in addition to at that spot is real niggling value given to effective teaching, either institutionally or individually. High-prestige enquiry publications are the ticket for career advancement for the faculty member; in addition to nationally visible enquiry achievement is the money of the realm for academy leaders. This value scheme leaves out the undergraduate pupil almost entirely. But this gives woefully curt shrift to the projection of creating the adjacent generation of creative, skilled, rigorous thinkers who volition constitute the top dog rootage of excogitation in addition to novel cognition inwards the French Republic of tomorrow. Currently the universities do non seem to live succeeding inwards focusing on this crucial task.
And thence at that spot is the job of the turbo prof. This is a real wide phenomenon inwards the academy basis of French Republic today that was largely created yesteryear the extension of the TGV network of fast trains connecting many secondary cities to Paris alongside ninety infinitesimal journeys. This has helped create the phenomenon of the "turbo prof" -- academics who alive inwards Paris in addition to commute to Tours, Dijon, Strasbourg, or other regional centers. There is a long history of French academics preferring Paris to the regional cities. But at i time it is possible to alive inwards Paris in addition to pass a hateful solar daytime in addition to a one-half on the regional campus where the academic has an academic appointment.
This phenomenon would non live troubling if the turbo prof kept upward his or her role of the bargain: committed teaching, adequate fourth dimension on campus to suggest in addition to assist students, in addition to a reasonable aeroplane of interest inwards the intellectual in addition to institutional life of the university. But this is all likewise frequently non the case, it appears. Instead, the total of fourth dimension spent on the academy campus is frequently reduced to a two-day menstruum of intensive lecturing. The prof travels from Paris on a Mon morning; reaches the campus yesteryear 11:00 am; lectures half-dozen hours on Monday; stays inwards a pied-a-terre or hotel room Mon night; lectures unopen to other half-dozen hours on Tuesday; in addition to returns to Paris inwards fourth dimension for dinner on Tuesday evening. It is tardily plenty to forget virtually those undergraduates inwards Tours, Strasbourg, or Dijon yesteryear the fourth dimension the TGV slides into the Gare de Lyons or the Gare de Montparnasse or the Gare de l'Est.
This is real worrisome for the economical in addition to civic futurity of France. University is a fourth dimension during which students demand to live stretched, challenged, in addition to deepened inwards their intellectual capacities. But this isn't probable to come about when they get got essentially null contact alongside faculty, real express writing assignments, in addition to a real depression feel of accountability for their progress on the role of the university.
This is also a hazardous reality for the permanent faculty of these universities. If it becomes apparent that their real express efforts inwards their teaching roles brand almost no deviation inwards the procedure of evolution in addition to maturation that their students achieve, thence it is a real curt footstep to lastly that their services are non needed. The few who are really of import enquiry scholars may honor choice job inwards enquiry institutes, of which French Republic has a fair number. But the stance of a teacher-scholar volition live dead. And the adjacent rank of less accomplished researchers volition demand to await for operate exterior of academia -- non a real encouraging prospect inwards French Republic today.
The institutions governing higher pedagogy inwards French Republic demand to accept these problems seriously. Universities demand to refocus their attending on effective, transformative undergraduate education. Faculty demand to live re-enculturated to give sincere adherence to the importance of their teaching responsibilities in addition to contact alongside students. The turbo profs demand to extend their operate weeks on their regional campuses to a reasonable aeroplane -- at to the lowest degree 3 total days in addition to preferably four. And the Ministry of Higher Education in addition to Research needs to impose existent standards of accountability on universities in addition to departments, along the lines of the accreditation processes that be inwards North America. And it goes without maxim -- those accountability standards demand to live focused on the primary values of the university, non the marketplace position value of this aeroplane or that.
It is ironic to me that the sociology of pedagogy is a much to a greater extent than prominent role of the sociology profession inwards French Republic than it is inwards the United States. Much attending has been given to the effects that the educational organization has on shape stratification, start alongside Bourdieu in addition to Passeron, Les Heritiers: Les etudiants et la Culture, in addition to extending through Mohamed Cherkaoui's École et société : Les paradoxes de la démocratie (French Edition). And yet I haven't been able to locate anything that focuses on the query of educational quality, the educational progress that undergraduates make, in addition to the institutional in addition to private practices that interfere alongside educational progress inwards the universities.
Here is an OECD character assessment written report compiled inwards cooperation alongside Universite Louis Pasteur inwards Strasbourg (link). This document has many of the dimensions of an accreditation written report inwards North America. And it illustrates several of the problems mentioned above. The written report gives substantially to a greater extent than attending to enquiry activities than teaching effectiveness; the university's answer to this number when raised inwards 1985 was essentially nil; in addition to the i endeavor at implementing measures of teaching character assessment that was undertaken -- pupil surveys of educational satisfaction -- was plainly discontinued. The written report highlights continuing issues having to do alongside the effectiveness of undergraduate education: "the excellence of teaching inwards the postgraduate wheel in addition to the shortcomings of the other cycles, alongside emphasis on the lack of performance indicators, peculiarly equally regards graduate employment; ...".
Here is a recent tidings even out on the funding issues inwards French universities (link).
French readers -- what are your observations virtually undergraduate pedagogy inwards French universities?
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