In: International Herald Tribune, Special Report: International Education, p 17.
France pushes decentralization
By Barry James (International Herald Tribune)
February 18, 2003
PARIS:
It used to be said with some exaggeration that the education minister in Paris could find out what every student in the country was doing just by looking at his watch. France’s tradition of strong centralization in education has, however, already been partly dismantled. Now it is about to undergo more fundamental change.The National Assembly later this month will vote on a constitutional amendment to authorize a new phase of decentralization. In the 1980s, the state turned over to regional governments and municipalities the responsibility for the upkeep of school buildings as well as providing such things as school meals and transport. The center-right government now is contemplating more fundamental changes that would, for example, give regional authorities more responsibility for setting a curriculum adapted to the local employment market, or recruiting staff.
The government’s proposals have sparked debate among teachers’ unions, which reject decentralization, and a nationwide organization called Parents of Pupils in Public Schools, which cautiously welcomes the concept of more local autonomy. The Conference of University Presidents, meanwhile, supports decentralization if it means more autonomy for their establishments and control over their budgets.
The education minister, the philosopher Luc Ferry, says it is time to stop thinking of grand reforms that come from the top and instead to allow more local initiative and autonomy. He said recently that the task of the Education Ministry is to establish the broad guidelines and to extend nationally whatever proves to work well locally.
The teachers, who constitute one of the most powerful corporative forces in France, see decentralization as an assault on their privileges as well as a contradiction of the republican principle of equality. In January, thousands of teachers went on strike to demand greater emphasis on education as a national priority. The teachers’ unions argue that turning over responsibility to the regions will, in effect, place education in the hands of business and industry, because it is these that will ultimately decide what jobs are available and what education is appropriate to fill them.
They also fear that decentralization will lead to a lowering of standards in some regions and point to Germany, where the individual states are responsible for education and where the wide disparities in standards among them make it difficult for parents to move from one part of the country to another and find the same curriculum for their children.
Ferry and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin have both sought to reassure the unions that teachers will be unaffected by the changes, which still have to be defined.
The debate over decentralization does not only affect France. A report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development talks of a ‘‘new learning economy’’ in which regions and cities can play new roles in promoting learning, innovation, productivity and economic performance at the local level. The report says the issue is high on the political agenda everywhere and argues that regions may be better attuned to the requirements of the information age than central governments.
In France, where the present system is working badly in many areas, even if the best schools continue to perform to very high standards, the debate has focused on the middle schools, known as Colleges of Secondary Education. These schools are roughly equivalent to the English comprehensive schools, the Gesamtschule in Germany and the American junior high schools, and lead to the lycée or high school or to vocational education.
For many educators, the fundamental purpose of these schools is to provide a minimum standard of education and culture for all. For critics, this boils down simply to a minimal standard of education.
Many of these middle schools appear to be performing badly and letting many students drop through the mesh into academic failure.
Ferry wants to restore a sense of discipline and hard work in the schools. He says it is scandalous that 150,000 students leave the education system every year without a qualification, that half of those who make it to university drop out within two years and that France still has a relatively high rate of illiteracy and semi-literacy. Ferry has described those who leave school without qualifications as pressure cookers ready to explode at any time. At the same time, he wants to combat the violence that has become endemic in many schools.
He said in January that he seeks to promote alternative channels so that students who are performing badly can receive a more vocational type of education within the framework of the Colleges of Secondary Education. In an interview with the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, Ferry said students are often too indulged. ‘‘You cannot become an artist, a scientist or an accomplished sportsman without effort,’’ he said. ‘‘There is no other way. My message is not a lesson in morality. It is pragmatic. It is anti-Peter Pan.’’