Fostering a learning society - Report on the French National Strategy for Higher Education

9 septembre 2015

Fostering a learning society - Report on the French National Strategy for Higher Education

Responding to a changing world: a challenge for higher education and research
The world is facing a number of crises and challenges as well as vast opportunities about the environment, issues of inequality, health, and implications of the digital revolution. These challenges have a common denominator: the need for knowledge and to share knowledge. Higher education and research must play an essential role in solving these challenges. As American economist and 2001 Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz so aptly expressed, we must build "a learning society" able to evolve continuously and in which each individual has been taught to learn to progress as a professional and a citizen throughout his or her life. Higher education therefore must adapt. While previously it aimed to train a small elite, today it is open to most young adults. In some countries, it is expected the vast majority of the population will hold university degrees within 10 years.
A lucid diagnosis
The report's proposals are based on an unapologetic analysis of the French higher education system's strengths and weaknesses to take on the challenges to come.
Three opinions inform these proposals:
• In a rapidly changing world, higher education is a key force for progress. For France, it may be the most influential means by which to restore economic growth and social justice.
• Our educational system offers immense advantages were France simply able to face its weaknesses lucidly.
• Ambition and determination are needed to rally all players in support of the stated objectives.
Our world is changing and facing new societal challenges. The digital revolution is transforming radically our modes of production and our access to knowledge. The labour market is increasingly polarised: trades are disappearing and workers are having to change jobs, and sometimes even professions, more often. Higher education and research are internationalising in tandem with the globalisation process.
To take on these challenges, the French higher education system’s strengths include: a solid rate of access to education thanks to nearly-free university tuition and to proactive policies implemented in the 1990s (42% of young people earn a higher education degree); a high success rate (which, contrary to popular belief, at 80% is 10 points higher than the OECD average); a diploma that acts as a bulwark against unemployment even in the current economic crisis (a graduate is 5 times less likely to be unemployed than one without a university degree); and a significant international student population (France ranks third among OECD countries in the number of enrolled foreign students).
Weaknesses in the French higher education system are well-known and include: elitism and a tendency to reproduce social inequalities (among 2010 graduates, 28% were from working class families while 65% were from managerial class backgrounds); the prevailing impact of the initial degree, the lack of opportunity to make up for a failed year, and difficulty in changing tracks; fear of downward social mobility (46% of those 18 to 30 believe they will probably be worse off than their parents); uncoordinated strategies and a rigid administration; lack of recognition of the teaching profession and of innovative pedagogical initiatives; and an overall spending for higher education as a percentage of GDP (1.5%) slightly below the OECD average (1.6%), well below that of Northern European countries, and way behind that in the United States or Canada (2.7% and 2.8% respectively).
France still occupies an important place in the world, but its position is fragile and threatened as many OECD countries are increasing their investment in higher education. Stagnating would mean going backwards and risking an identity and social crisis, a brain drain, an innovation shortfall, and a loss of competitiveness. To build on its achievements, France has no other choice but to move forward, address its weaknesses head-on, and set ambitious objectives for the future.
Five strategic tenets, three levers, and an action plan: Forty proposals for a learning society
In answer to its SWOT analysis, the committee set five strategic tenets:
• Build a learning society and strengthen our economy
• Increase the European and international components of our higher education system
• Boost social mobility and further social inclusion
• Design 21st-century higher education
• Respond to our young people’s aspirations
The committee also identified three main levers:
• Define a new higher education landscape
• Listen to and support the men and women who work in higher education
• Invest in a learning society
The report aims to provide a road map thanks to an action plan of 40 proposals that are realistic, concrete, and actionable.
These proposals form a whole and cannot be dissociated. Some of them relate specifically to a tenet or a lever, others represent multidisciplinary or crossdepartmental projects. All are interdependent and complementary, forming a coherent vision.