A HUGE MODERNIST university campus is emerging amid farmland on a plateau south of the French capital. The University of Paris-Saclay, officially launched this year, merges some 20 higher-education and research institutions. It has a teaching and research staff of 9,000, catering to 48,000 students—more than Harvard or Stanford. Specialised in science, it is France’s attempt to create, in President Emmanuel Macron’s words, an “MIT à la française”. Such ambition once seemed fanciful. Yet in August Paris-Saclay stormed into the Shanghai world university ranking, grabbing 14th place overall and 3rd in Europe after Cambridge and Oxford. It took the top international spot in maths.France’s two-tier higher-education system baffles outsiders. Three-fifths of its 2.7m students are enrolled in universities. These are public. Until recently they did not select undergraduates at entry; they charge no tuition bar a small enrolment fee, and are often sneered at as second-rate. An elite minority, meanwhile, attend selective grandes écoles, for which entrance exams require at least two years of post-secondary-school cramming. To confuse matters further, research is traditionally not carried out in universities or grande ecoles but in specialised public institutions.
Over the years, this unusual structure has led to much French frustration about foreign perceptions. The country has world-class engineering schools, economics departments and mathematicians. After America, France has more Fields medal-winners for maths than any other country. Yet its fragmented system—partly down to the deliberate splitting of big universities after the 1968 student protests—has left it under-performing in world rankings and lacking global star appeal.I had no idea the French were so into maths. [At this point, I'm tempted to make a reference to menage a trois, but will leave that to actual comedians.]
Anyway, it looks like a successful merger.
2 comments:
Hmmm. You make it sound if its been put together at great expense for reasons of vanity. If objectively speaking its localism was so successful then they are fixing something that isn't broken.
We need to learn a lot from the French. In this country I'm outright excluded from the public sector. And all but excluded from the private sector now for various reasons. But in France everyone who has a public sector job is qualified objectively through exam performance. They actually cannot stop you getting a leg up into the public sector if you blitz the exams. Thats just great. It would be great for me anyway. It sets up an environment where not being an idiot really counts in the public sector. This may be one reason these arrogant French guys are often out of step with the Americans. Engineering an intelligence loving public sector, and combining this with a small businessman's paradise, would be an unbeatable combination.
Look at the excellent academic performances you highlight here? Seems they were over-performing with their way of doing things. They should have been more proud of their unique system. If you centralise anything good you are setting it up to be infiltrated, controlled, and perverted.
The performance of the giant university is based on what came before.
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