THE INTERVIEW - Peter Gumbel, Paris Correspondent, Time Magazine
British journalist Peter Gumbel, author of "France's Got Talent: The woeful consequences of French elitism" speaks to François Picard about the French "grandes écoles", or elite institutions of higher learning. At a time when France is struggling to maintain its place in the world, Peter Gumbel believes that its pervasive culture of elitism is a handicap, not an advantage.
“Tell us about the history of Canada…” This curveball question thrown to a startled French student applying to France’s prestigious Sciences Po university is just one example of the so-called “instruments of pedagogical torture” described in Peter Gumbel’s new book “France's Got Talent: the Woeful Consequences of French Elitism”.
Selection-by-elimination is at the heart of a French education system put in place by Napoleon in the early 19th century, and that begins as early as secondary school, in a country where 95% of college students go to second-tier public universities and where the dropout rate can reach as high as 85% (for first year medical students, for example).
Such students, more often than not, begin active life on a note of failure, according to Gumbel.
Then there are the happy few, the 5% who attend the Grandes Ecoles like Science Po. That rarefied atmosphere includes the national administration school, ENA, and the Ecole Polytechnique, which together mete out a mere 0.057% of French graduates but nonetheless make up more than 60% of President Fra... Lire la suite sur notre site web.
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“Tell us about the history of Canada…” This curveball question thrown to a startled French student applying to France’s prestigious Sciences Po university is just one example of the so-called “instruments of pedagogical torture” described in Peter Gumbel’s new book “France's Got Talent: the Woeful Consequences of French Elitism”.
Selection-by-elimination is at the heart of a French education system put in place by Napoleon in the early 19th century, and that begins as early as secondary school, in a country where 95% of college students go to second-tier public universities and where the dropout rate can reach as high as 85% (for first year medical students, for example).
Such students, more often than not, begin active life on a note of failure, according to Gumbel.
Then there are the happy few, the 5% who attend the Grandes Ecoles like Science Po. That rarefied atmosphere includes the national administration school, ENA, and the Ecole Polytechnique, which together mete out a mere 0.057% of French graduates but nonetheless make up more than 60% of President Fra... Lire la suite sur notre site web.
http://www.france24.com/en/taxonomy/emission/18004
Visitez notre site :
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