"Alexandre est interdit de sortie," said my friend Pierre. I had invited him and his wife to dinner along with their children.
I wasn't getting involved in that one-- maybe Alexandre had done something awful? He seems like such a nice boy. 
Pierre hastened to explain. "He's in first year of médécine at Descartes."
I must have sounded puzzled. Did that explain why he couldn't go out to dinner?
"Oh, I forget you're a foreigner and not used to our crazy French system," he said. "Well, there are 2900 students in the first year of medicine at Descartes. They take anyone who passes the bac and wants to go into medicine. But in the second year, there are places for only 300 students."
"What happens to all the others?" I asked.
"Well, they can redoubler [repeat the year], and take the exam again," he said. "Or they must leave."
Interesting. Assuming it's a 5-year course of study and nobody does a second year before washing out, that's 2,900 student-years of work in the first year, and 4 x 300 = 1,200 student-years of work by the successful students during the next 4 years before they graduate.
So 63% of the total student-years of work are wasted, along with the cost of providing the associated facilities and instruction, in addition to 90% of the students having all of their time wasted.
Doesn't seem so bad really, just government more or less as usual, until one reflects that all of that effort and cost might have been used differently to produce something useful.
I guess it's possible there is a second track where many of the rejects at the end of the first year go, where they derive some benefit from their first year studies. Veterinary studies? Nursing? Probably still not very efficient.
Posted by: ZF | 13 September 2006 at 23:06
Yes, it's called the numerus clausus. Been going on for years. It's crazy because thousands of kids stand to lose one or two years of their lives -- or worse, get reoriented to "filières" they didn't choose in the first place, for the sake of capitalizing on the time already passed [wasted] studying for what they really wanted to do.
Have you heard of all the French students who go to college in nearby Belgium, so they can do what they really want to do? [Not that it pleases the Belgians.]
More manifs on the way...
Posted by: LA Frog | 14 September 2006 at 02:07
80% of an age classe must pass the baccalaureat.
I don't mean must TAKE it (as you could assume I meant as many of us French do) but really PASS. Which mean that all this people who were given the baccalureat to maintain our state statistics, are free to go in Medecine.
Well it seems puzzling for some French people that not all of these students actually have a good enough level to be doctors. Not everybody can!!! The selection, which used to be done by having or not the bac (because there were times when you could fail) is now done one year later by passing or not the 1rst year exam.
The selection is still there, our future doctors are still well trained by years of hard studies and hard work that not everybody is willing to sacrifice their lives to AND we keep our good statistics as PPDA, every July, annouce proudly _ as if he actually believed it _ that our very good Education system allows 80% of the 2006 vintage to successfully pass the Bac.
Everybody is happy and the 2600 students wasting their time in Descartes are not counted as unemployed : GOOD MATHS!!!
Posted by: Nab | 19 September 2006 at 17:21