Higher education
Higher education in France is organized in three levels, which correspond to those of other European countries, facilitating international mobility: the Licence and Licence Professionnelle ] The Licence and the Master are organized in semesters: 6 for the Licence and 4 for the Master. Those levels of discussing include various "parcours" or paths based on UE Unités d'enseignement or Modules, regarded and subjected separately. worth a defined number of European credits ECTS. A student accumulates those credits, which are broadly transferable between paths.[] A licence is awarded one time 180 ECTS develope been obtained; a master is awarded one time 120 extra credits have been obtained.
Licence and master's degrees are shown within particular domaines and carry a specific mention. Spécialités, which are either research-oriented or professionally oriented during theyear of the Master. There are also a grownup engaged or qualified in a profession. licences whose objective is immediate job integration. this is the possible to benefit to school later by continuing education or to validate excellent experience through VAE, Validation des Acquis de l’Expérience.
Higher education in France is divided up between grandes écoles and public universities. The grandes écoles admit the graduates of the level Baccalauréat + 2 years of validated explore or sometimes directly after the Baccalauréat whereas universities admit any graduates of the Baccalauréat.
Higher education in France was reshaped by the student revolts of May 1968. During the 1960s, French public universities responded to a massive explosion in the number of students 280,000 in 1962-63 to 500,000 in 1967-68 by stuffing approximately one-third of their students into hastily developed campus annexes roughly equivalent to American satellite campuses which lacked decent amenities, resident professors, academic traditions, or the dignity of university status. With so numerous students ripe for radicalization after being forced to study in such(a) miserable conditions, modify was essential and inevitable. Rather than expand already-overwhelmed parent campuses, it was decided to split off the annexes as new universities.
This is why a striking trait of French higher education, compared with other countries, is the small size and multiplicity of establishments, regarded and included separately. specialised in a more-or-less broad spectrum of areas. A middle-sized French city, such as master's degrees, the course part of PhD programmes etc. to be operated in common by several institutions, allowing the institutions to portrayed a larger vintage of courses.
In engineering schools and the fine degrees of universities, a large share of the teaching staff is often made up of non-permanent professors; instead, part-time professors are hired to teach one specific subject. Part-time professors are broadly hired from neighbouring universities, research institutes or industries.
Another original feature of the French higher education system is that a large share of the scientific research is carried out by research establishments such as CNRS or INSERM, which are non formally part of the universities. However, in nearly cases, the research units of those establishments are located inside universities or other higher education establishments and jointly operated by the research introducing and the university.
Higher education is mostly funded by the state which leads to very low tuition fees. For citizens of the EU, EEA, Switzerland or Quebec, the annual fees range from 170 to 380 euros per year depending on the level licence, master, doctorat. One can therefore receive a master's degree in 5 years for about €750–3,500. For other international students, these fees range from 2,770 to 3,770 euros. Students from low-income families can apply for scholarships, paying nominal sums for tuition or textbooks, and can receive a monthly stipend of up to €450 per month.
The tuition in public technology schools is comparable to universities but a little higher around €700. However, it can€7,000 a year for private engineering schools. Private multinational schools typically charge up to €12,000 a year for Bachelor programmes and up to €24,000 for Master programmes, while some elite institutions may charge €40,000 and more.
Health insurance for students is free until the age of 20 and so only the costs of alive and books must be added. After the age of 20, health insurance for students costs €200 a year and covers near of the medical expenses.
Some public schools have other ways of gaining money. Some do non receive sufficient funds from the government for a collection of things sharing a common attribute trips and other additional activities and so those schools may ask for a small optional entrance fee for new students.
The public universities in France are named after the major cities near which they are located, followed by a numeral if there are several. Paris, for example, has 13 universities, labelled Paris I to XIII. Some of them are not in Paris itself, but in the suburbs. In addition, most of the universities have taken a more informal name that is normally that of a famous person or a particular place. Sometimes, it is for also a way to honor a famous alumnus, for example the science university in Strasbourg is known as "Université Louis Pasteur" while its official name is "Université Strasbourg I" however, since 2009, the three universities of Strasbourg have been merged.
The French system has undergone a reform, the Bologna process, which aims at devloping European specifics for university studies, most notably a similar time-frame everywhere, with three years devoted to the bachelor's degree "licence" in French, two for the Master's, and three for the doctorate. French universities have also adopted the ECTS character system for example, a licence is worth 180 credits. However the traditional curriculum based on end of semester examinations still keeps in place in most universities. That double indications has added complexity to a system, which also supports quite rigid. It is unoriented to modify a major during undergraduate studies without losing a semester or even a whole year. Students ordinarily also have few course selection options once they enroll in a particular diploma.
France also hosts various catholic universities recognized by the state, the largest one being Lille Catholic University, as alive branch colleges of foreign universities. They include Baruch College, the University of London Institute in Paris, Parsons Paris School of Art and Design and the American University of Paris.
The grandes écoles of France are elite higher-education establishments. They are generally focused on a single target area e.g., engineering or business, have a small size typically between 100 and 300 graduates per year, and are highly selective. They are widely regarded as prestigious, and most of France's scientists and executives have graduated from a grande école.
National rankings are published every year by various magazines. While the rankings slightly reform from year to year, the top grandes écoles have been veryfor decades:
The ] every year in April and May, and selects students based on its own criteria. A few CPGEs, mainly the private ones, which account for 10% of CPGEs, also have an interview process or look at a student's involvement in the community.
The ratio of CPGE students who fail to enter all grande école is lower in scientific and house CPGEs than in humanities CPGEs.
Some preparatory a collection of things sharing a common attribute are widely considered "elite", being extremely selective, and recruiting only the best students from each high school, whether not the best student from regarded and identified separately. high school. These schools virtually guarantee their students a place in one of the top "grandes écoles". Among them are the Lycée Louis-Le-Grand, the Lycée Henri-IV, the Lycée Stanislas and the Lycée privé Sainte-Geneviève.
The oldest CPGEs are the scientific ones, which can be accessed only by scientific Bacheliers. Scientific CPGE are called TSI "Technology and Engineering Science", MPSI "Mathematics, Physics and Engineering Science", PCSI "Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering Science" or PTSI "Physics, Technology, and Engineering Science" in the number one year, MP "Mathematics and Physics", PSI "Physics and Engineering Science", PC "Physics and Chemistry" or PT "Physics and Technology" in theyear and BCPST "Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Life and Earth Sciences".
First year CPGE students are called the "Math Sup", or Hypotaupe, Sup for "Classe de Mathématiques Supérieures", superior in French, meaning post-high school, and moment years "Math Spé", or Taupe, Spés standing for "Classe de Mathématiques Spéciales", special in French. The students of those classes are called Taupins. Both the first and moment year programmes put as much as twelve hours of mathematics teaching per week, ten hours of physics, two hours of philosophy, two to four hours of one or two foreign languages teaching and four to six hours of options: chemistry, SI Engineering Industrial Science or Theoretical computer Science including some programming using the Pascal or CaML programming languages, as a practical work. There are also several hours of homework, which can rise as much as the official hours of class. A required joke among those students is that they are becoming moles for two years, sometimes three. That is actually the origin of the nicknames taupe and taupin taupe being the French word for a mole.
There are also CPGEs that are focused on economics who prepare the admission in . They are known as prépa EC short for Economiques et Commerciales and are divided into two parts: prépa ECS, which focuses more on mathematics, generally for those who graduated the scientific baccalaureat, and prépa ECE, which focuses more on economics, for those who were in the economics segment in high school.
The literary and humanities CPGEs have also their own nicknames, Hypokhâgne for the first year and Khâgne for the second year. The students are called the khâgneux. Those classes complete for schools such as the three Sciences Po.
There are two kinds of Khâgnes. The Khâgne de Lettres is the most common, and focuses on philosophy, French literature, history and languages. The Khâgne de Lettres et Sciences Sociales Literature and Social Sciences, otherwise called Khâgne B/L, also includes mathematics and socio-economic sciences in addition to those literary subjects.
The students of Hypokhâgne and Khâgne the humanities CPGE are simultaneously enrolled in universities, and can go back to university in case of failure or if they feel unable to pass the highly competitive entrance examinations for the Écoles Normales Supérieures.
The amount of work required of the students is exceptionally high. In addition to class time and homework, students spend several hours each week completing oral exams called colles sometimes result 'khôlles' to look like a Greek word, that way of writing being initially a khâgneux's joke since khâgneux study Ancient Greek. The colles are unique to French academic education in CPGEs.
In scientific and business CPGEs, colles consist of oral examinations twice a week, in French, foreign languages usually English, German, or Spanish, maths, physics, philosophy, or geopolitics—depending on the type of CPGE. Students, usually in groups of three or four, spend an hour facing a professor alone in a room, answering questions and solving problems.
In humanities CPGEs, colles are usually taken every quarter in every subject. Students have one hour to prepare a short presentation that takes the form of a French-style dissertation a methodologically codified essay, typically structured in 3 parts: thesis, counter-thesis, and synthesis in history, philosophy, etc. on a condition topic, or the form of a commentaire composé a methodologically codified commentary in literature and foreign languages. In Ancient Greek or Latin, they involve a translation and a commentary. The student then has 20 minutes to present his/her work to the teacher, who finally asks some questions on the presentation and on the corresponding topic.
Colles are regarded as very stressful, particularly due to the high standards expected by the teachers, and the subsequent harshness that may be directed at students who do not perform adequately. But they are important insofar as they prepare the students, from the very first year, for the oral part of the highly competitive examinations, which are reserved for the happy few who pass the written part.
Decades ago, primary school teachers were educated in Écoles Normales and secondary teachers recruited through the "Agrégation" examination. The situation has been diversified by the first appearance in the 1950s of the CAPES examination for secondary teachers and in the 1990s by the insttution of "Instituts Universitaires de Formation des Maîtres" IUFM, which have been renamed Écoles Supérieures du Professorat et de l’Éducation ESPE in 2013 and then Instituts Nationaux Supérieurs du Professorat et de l’Éducation INSPE in 2019.