Éducation et décentralisation en France

The debate about the future of education in France has been reignited this autumn with the nomination of a committee, chaired by Claude Thélot, charged with producing a “shared diagnosis” as to the state of the schools; this will then serve as the basis for a parliamentary bill to be put to the vote in early 2004. One of the major issues at the heart of the discussions with all those involved in the French education system is likely to be the question of how far the system should be decentralized.
Vincent Tournier makes a contribution here to this important debate, stressing the deficiencies of the French system and showing how far these could be remedied by decentralization.
Tournier sets out first to demonstrate how far the French education system has departed from its fundamental principles: that education should be free, open to all and effective. He emphasizes in particular that, far from reducing social inequalities, the system tends to reproduce them and, although most French people think the system achieves good results, this is far from true, as international comparisons show.
According to Vincent Tournier, this situation is the result of the system’s excessive centralization which, in spite of the many reforms that have been approved, continues to impede any improvements. For this reason he recommends trying to decentralize. Admittedly decentralization may well lead to social, geographical and other inequalities, but these can be counteracted by close monitoring and compensatory measures; above all, he argues, decentralization will make it possible to satisfy better the concerns of parents and pupils and to adapt schools to meet local needs. From this standpoint, it could also be a means of increasing local participation and therefore, ultimately, would be more democratic.