INFORMAZIONI UNIVERSITARIE

School-leavers who complain that university admissions are a lottery should spare a thought for their French counterparts. A growing number of French university chancellors draw lots to decide who will get a place on degree courses. The practice, described by critics as absurd, is at the centre of a row over France's ideological commitment to egalitarianism, which prevents chancellors from selecting the best students. Under French law, anyone with a Baccalauréat - the equivalent of A levels - has the right to a place on the university course of their choice. The tuition fees are low – euro 183 a year for an undergraduate degree, 254 for a master's and 388 for a doctorate. Seventy-three per cent of school-leavers pass the Baccalauréat, and universities say that they cannot cope with the rising student numbers - 2,382,000 at the last tally. However, France operates a parallel and deeply elitist system of higher education called the Grandes Écoles, which cream off the best students. Jean-Luc Vayssière, chancellor of Versailles University, said that his law faculty had 300 first-year students in lecture halls that had a capacity for 200. "The building is going to explode," he said. "I cannot take the responsibility to put students on the stairs. "Many chancellors would like to pick the brightest students and reject the rest, as happens in Britain. But Jean Loup Salzmann, the chairman of the French Conference of University Chancellors, said that that was unthinkable, given the French commitment to a university education for all.
(Fonte: The Times 08-10-2013)