It's but a trifle here...
...given what's going on in the Paris suburbs, but it seems the French government took a serious look at the same lists of the world's best universities UD did [for my brief take on the lists, go to the Sunday, October 30, 2005 post, "Brownout."] This is from the Financial Times:
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French interior minister, called on Friday for rapid reform of the underperforming universities system as a crucial step in boosting France's economic competitiveness. "We cannot be satisfied that the leading French university ranks 46th internationally," he said. "To resolve this situation we must have better financed universities that are truly autonomous and better managed."
His words were an attack on university management, in which professors are members of the civil service and decision-making is shared between students, teaching staff and managers. Power-sharing was established as the result of the national student rebellion of 1968, the memory of which still inspires fear of education reform in government circles [again, for UD's take on this, after teaching for a semester at the University of Toulouse, see my Monday, February 23, 2004 post, "Journaux Universitaires"].
The lack of managerial autonomy to raise finance and compete for teaching staff internationally, along with a reluctance among unions to allow universities to select students, is widely blamed for France's poor performance in tertiary level educational rankings.
Yes, you read that right. Most French universities don't get to select students.
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