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after one year and a Master’s (maîtrise), in-
cluding some initiation to research method,
after a second year. The third tier covered high
specialization and doctoral research. Univer-
sities were given some control over the design
of their curricula, but only within agreed lim-
its, imposed to protect the national character
of the awards. Teaching was dispensed via lec-
tures, seminars or practical classes, as appro-
priate, in units of about ninety minutes per
week (unités de valeur—UV).
These structures are still broadly speaking
in place, despite some changes in emphasis and
terminology introduced by subsequent re-
forms. In 1984, the UER were redesignated
UFR (Unités de Formation et de Recherche),
in keeping with the emphasis on career prepa-
ration in the Savary act, and in 1992 the units
were replaced, theoretically, by more broadly
based modules, to introduce measures of com-
pensation between individual course units.
However, despite its apparent centrally inspired
uniformity, in practice the system remains
somewhat diverse; since being granted au-
tonomy, some universities have in the past used
it to delay, even to avoid applying, the various
reforms urged upon them by government. In
administrative terms, however, they come
within the direct purview of the education min-
istry, which controls staff appointments, pays
salaries (generally speaking, all permanent
teachers are civil servants), sanctions the na-
tional diplomas the institutions are entitled to
award, and provides the majority of their re-
current funding. These matters are incorpo-
rated in the four-year contracts signed with the
ministry. In addition, the Recteur d’Académie
acts as chancellor of the universities within his
or her administrative district.
Reforms over the last twenty years have
been dominated by two overriding concerns:
the need to combat the high failure rate, in the
the first cycle in particular, and the desire to
make syllabuses and qualifications more rel-
evant to subsequent employment.
The first of these concerns derives from fig-
ures which suggest that up to 40 per cent of
university entrants fail to achieve even the first-
level qualification, the DEUG. With selective
entry having been repeatedly ruled out, various
alternative formulae have been tried, often with
some short-term success, within the limits of the
resources available: better briefing on courses
and careers before registration; reformed pro-
grammes which introduce greater measures of
subject and career counselling and possibilities
of change of direction early in the course; the
employment of senior students to act as ‘tutors’
to newcomers; the creation of antennes (out-
posts) in local towns, where the transition be-
tween the more protective environment of the
lycée and the disorientating, impersonal cam-
pus might be made more easily by those with-
out university experience in the family.
The second preoccupation is linked to the
first, in so far as clear definition of career pos-
sibilities is perceived as enhancing motivation,
and thereby reducing failure. It has repeatedly
been stated that the extended programmes of
university study are too long and too abstract
for a significant (and increasing) proportion
of those embarking upon them. Hence, major
attempts have been made to adapt. Firstly this
has involved the development of shorter, pro-
fessionally orientated alternatives, both inside
and outside the universities, whether it be two-
year intensive courses in technical subjects lead-
ing to a Diplôme Universitaire de Technologie,
in the Instituts Universitaires de Technologic
or expansion of advanced post-baccalauréat
technical education at the lycée (Sections de
Techniciens Supérieurs). More significantly,
perhaps, professionally orientated diplomas
have been introduced into the second and third
cycles. These range from the specialist com-
mercial qualification, the Maîtrise de Sciences
de Gestion, first introduced in 1970, to the
diploma of ingénieur-maître awarded by the
Instituts Universitaires Professionalises estab-
lished by Lionel Jospin in 1991. What these
prestigious programmes have in common,
however—apart, that is, from purporting to
be in the mould of the grandes écoles, with
input from industrialists and compulsory prac-
tical placements—is the fact that they select
the best applicants from among those already
embarked upon higher education. By virtue of
the selective process, they do not of course
universities