If we stick to the 6 first Harvard students 19

The world ranking of universities by the Shanghai Jiatong University is almost unchanged from 2005 to the French settlements: Paris-VI in the 45th place, Paris-XI at the 64th, Strasbourg-I in the 91st, normal sub Ulm to the 99th. Des au-delà et Paris. Paris and beyond. It is not to discourage, but look at the reality without indulgence and avoid some mistakes in the comments on this classification.

First error: the size of our institutions would be too low. Of course, the addition of the Parisian institutions best placed shows that we could have a national champion who would appear in the first world. But such grouping corresponds to no viable reality because would be a monster of nearly 100,000 students, quickly ungovernable. The first twenty universities ranking are relatively small. If we stick to the 6 first, Harvard students 19.780, Cambridge 18.900, Stanford 12.460, Berkeley 26,000, the MIT 12,000 and Caltech 2,100. This is not the size that penalizes the French settlements, but the fact that it asked to do everything and anything with ridiculous and inappropriate means: undifferentiated home of any Bachelor, general education, research, vocational training, continuing education, international relations, distance learning, development of the territory, and all this without any prioritization missions and whatever the strengths of each. Ask each institution to do everything at the highest level is an illusion that undermines the quality of public service and finally destroyed. In addition to this mode of distribution of public and State steering of French universities do not encouraging them to develop their areas of excellence. Universities would be better if they had political autonomy to determine their objectives, within the general framework of the public service and not under the compulsion of a scrupulous administrative guardianship.

Second error: Jiatong criteria would encourage the Anglo-Saxon institutions. The methodology used is exposed on the site of Jiatong. It is exclusively based on scientific excellence. What is it specifically anglo-saxon If the use of purely scientific criteria penalizes the visibility of the French system, it is because thus appears the devastating spread of our public research. The rankings change significantly if all French research potential was taken into account, while our dual organization between universities and research organizations makes it unreadable academic ties of researchers and teachers-researchers and dilutes the scientific production in a mosaic of institutions. This is stupid, but it is so.

Third mistake: the classification would not consider large schools. With the exception of normal sub Ulm, they are so far in the ranking that one has the impression that they have been forgotten! Our schools are simply not these modern crucibles of knowledge in which to forge of contemporary societies, economic and social competitiveness based on the research and the training of elite broken to the transformation of scientific innovations in technological innovations.

The ranking reflects the obsolete character of our Organization to the globalization of the knowledge society. Solutions are advanced: closer to the great schools of the universities, select at the entrance to universities, develop research activities in schools, give more money to universities, possibly, by an increase in significant but fair of the registration fee, as the IEP of Paris. These are indeed elements of a response, but which are not satisfactory overall response.

Indeed, could not run the risk of weakening the schools by diluting it in the current universities, or to turn universities into vocational schools. Transfer research in large schools that do not have the tradition would be a nonsense given the capital of laboratories mixed organizations of research-universities. Same massively increase the means available to universities would not necessarily lead to greater efficiency. The weakness of the governance of a large number of these prohibits indeed too often to have a clear strategy and a strong executive able to commit to its implementation and to accept a rigorous assessment.

Finally, select brutally at the entrance to universities would be a mistake because it would still reduce the proportion of graduates of higher education in each age class. Is the problem unsolvable Non. We must move towards a complete diversification of our system of higher education: professional institutes for training in three or four years professional of high level, institutions leading to the master level training and real research universities, in the heart of scientific and technological innovation. Naturally this device should be completed by gateways for reorientations.

The safest way to get a relevant diversification is to give universities political autonomy which will allow them to develop initiatives best adapted to their specific characteristics: implementation Federation institutions or departments of institutions, much further, or even complete integration, with research organizations, reconciliation with enterprises, governance renovated, dynamic management of teaching and research staffincluding in terms of remuneration and career. The State must have the modesty of not to impose a uniform development by a central cockpit. Should be freely play local dynamics that a new landscape emerges, diversified and composed of institutions whose objectives will be clarified and who will be armed to achieve in the best conditions.