Higher Education 5 (1976) 189-210 �9 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in the Netherlands

T H E P O L I T I C S O F I N N O V A T I O N IN F R E N C H H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N :

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y I N S T I T U T E S O F T E C H N O L O G Y *

JOHN H. VAN DE GRAAFF

Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, U.S.A.

ABSTRACT

The creation of the French university institutes of technology (IUTs) in 1966 is characteristic of attempts by a number of industrialized nations to establish institutions of higher education better adapted than the traditional university to new cohorts of post-secondary students. The IUTs provide intensive short-cycle programs to train middle-level personnel in technical and administrative fields. Although the courses are designed as terminal, over one-third of IUT graduates go on to higher education, including a disproportionate number of students from lower social strata. Their staff are drawn from the universities, technical secondary education and the professions. Administrative- ly, the IUTs occupy an uneasy position partly connected with the universities and partly under direct ministerial authority; there is substantial involvement on the part of representatives of employers and trade unions as well. Despite this ambivalence of function and status, the IUTs are now well established as a modestly successful innova- tion. They represent a major aspect of the attempt by French policy-makers to introduce more effective methods of instruction and evaluation into the universities and to render them more responsive to the needs of the society and the economy.

I n t r o d u c t i o n

The pas t decade has been one o f change in the e d u c a t i o n a l sys tems o f

Western E u r o p e and there has been g rowing awareness o f the m u l t i p l e and

i n t e r r e l a t e d func t ions p l ayed by e d u c a t i o n a m o n g p o l i c y - m a k e r s and the

publ ic . A b o v e all, the pur su i t o f g rea te r social e q u i t y in and t h r ough the

schools and the e c o n o m y ' s d e m a n d s for ski l led m a n p o w e r have been the

ob jec t s o f m u c h p o l i c y deba te . Socia l conce rn has unde r l a in the massive

e x p a n s i o n o f e n r o l l m e n t s a t s e c o n d a r y and h ighe r levels; and e c o n o m i c

*The first draft of this paper was originally presented at the 1974 Annual Meeting of the Northeastern Political Science Association, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., November 7 -9 , 1974. A similar version appears in: Ladislav Cerych, ed., Between School and Work. Paris: European Cultural Foundation, The Institute of Education, 1975.

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motives have spurred attempts to provide differentiated institutions, more adapted than the traditional university to the career needs of the new cohorts of post-secondary students. This latter development accounts for the widespread interest in such short-cycle institutions as the American com- munity colleges, the British polytechnics, the German Gesamthochschulen and the French university institutes of technology, or IUTs (OECD, 1973).

The IUTs were established by the French government in 1966 as two-year institutions for training upper-level technicians for a variety of industrial, administrative and service positions. Their brief history makes a fascinating and paradoxical case study. Since 1968 they have been partly integrated with the universities; yet their pragmatic, vocational orientation and school-like methods are quite alien to the university system and in some ways very much akin to the grandes Ocoles. Their aim was to provide a terminal course of training; yet a substantial proportion of their graduates go on to further study. The primary motivation in founding them was econo- mic; yet they appear to be providing a distinct channel of upward mobility for a markedly higher proportion of lower class youth than any other sector of higher education. They have had their share of institutional rivals and political opponents, but they are a relatively successful innovation, in a society that is notorious for its hostility to innovations.

Establishment of the IUTs

The French system of post-secondary education has historically been characterized by a sharp division between the university faculties (which were open to all holders of the baccalaur&t and prepared students for the medical, legal and secondary-school teaching professions), and the grancles &oles, which were highly selective and led to a wide range of technological and business careers. The most elite of the grancles dcoles in the narrow sense, such as the Ecole Polytechnique, the Ecole Nationale d'Administra- tion and the Ecole Normale Sup6rieure, still provide access to positions at the highest levels of public and private administration. Among the lesser schools, the Ecoles Nationales Sup6rieures d'Ing6nieurs (ENSI - higher national schools of engineering) were loosely attached to the universities 1 , but technological faculties as such were never established.

The instruction given at the grandes &oles differed from that in the faculties in its technological orientation; the couses were also more intense and regimented with frequent examinations. In 1964, as the groundwork for the IUTs was being laid, some 320,000 students were enrolled in the universities as against 40,000 in the public grandes &oles (and 20,000 in private ones), no more than 12,000 of whom were attending the most elite of the grandes Ocoles (Ministbre de l'Education Nationale, 1966, pp. 18, 34). Rates of attrition in the faculties had reached severe proportions - some-

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times over 50 percent - while in the grandes ~coles virtually all students who were admitted finished on time.

At the secondary level, a similar division existed between the technical sector, capped by the technical lycdes, and the general lycOes and colleges. The former schools prepared their students for the technical baccalaurOat and also often provided further training in so-called higher technical sections which granted a higher technical certificate (brevet de technicien supOrieur, or BTS) two years after the baccalaureate. These sections were established in the early 1950s, and by 1964 their enrollment was about 18,700 (including 4,700 in private institutions) though the annual BTS output had barely reached 4,000 (Minist6re de l'Education Nationale, 1966, pp. 81, 227). Courses were given in a total of 35 highly specialized options, spread over 500 separate classes (Bernard, 1970, p. 84). A more recent innovation in 1961 attempted to introduce technical education at a level equivalent to the technical sections in the university science faculties. A student could obtain a diploma of higher technical studies (DEST) in two years; the course included a half-year unit of technological instruction and a nine-month apprenticeship. The effort proved to be a complete failure however; in 1965, for example, only 78 DESTs were awarded (Bernard, 1970, pp. 85-88; cf. Schriewer, 1972, p. 443). The longer and more traditional courses - notably the three-year licence - were still preferred; and the regular teaching staff in the science faculties, used in the main to theoretical instruction, showed little enthusiasm for implementing the DEST, and left the teaching of the technological units largely to part-time personnel who were engaged on a contractual basis.

It was against this background of scattered and largely inadequate provision for higher technical education that the measures known as the Fouchet Reforms (after the then Minister of Education) were prepared by commissions of outside experts and administration officials. The so-called "Commission of 18" prepared the broad outlines of the reforms during 1963-64, and presented a report accepted by the French cabinet (the Council of Ministers) in September 1964. Three subcommissions then worked out the details of the three principal measures: reform of the baccalaureate and the last three years of secondary education; curricular changes in the faculties of science and letters; and establishment of the IUTs (Schriewer, 1972, pp. 397-467). The composition of the latter body is noteworthy (Bernard, 1970, pp. 157-158). There were four main groups among its twenty members: six members of the administration, all but one connected with the Ministry of Education; four university academics, all scientists (as against seven professors on the parent committee, including four from the faculty of letters); six spokesmen from grandes dcoles and analogous institutions which were mainly technologically oriented; four interest group representatives, including three employers and one trade

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unionist (from the moderate CFDT). In the past the few successful innovations in French higher Education -

of which the elite grandes Ocoles are among the best examples - had been established outside existing structures such as the university faculties. So the designers of the IUTs assumed froth the outset that the new institutes would have to be essentially independent of both the technical lyc~es and the faculties. Moreover, as a key member of the IUT subcommission later observed, "Experience with the BTS had shown the impossibility of devel- oping higher technical instruction within the framework of a lycde; that with the DEST showed that the task was no less difficult in a faculty of science, given its structures and traditions. The necessity of an autonomous institu- tion was evident" (Bernard, 1970, p. 87). This helps account for the fact that the administration's contingent on the IUT subcommission included only one representative of technical education, and for the predominance of grandes Ocoles' representatives compared to university academics. Similarly, the presence of employers' and union representatives was indicative of the desire to ensure good relations between the IUTs and the business world.

The overriding issue which the government and the reform commissions had to face was the question of selection for higher education. Advocates of rigorous selection questioned the traditional system of open access to the university faculties for all baccalaureate holders and urged measures restric- ting the large number of those wishing to enter university. The opponents of selection, however, wanted to maintain free admission to the faculties, and some even sought ways of broadening access to the still highly selective grandes dcoles. In the final version of the reforms, the government decided against any widespread introduction of selection and instead placed more emphasis on orientation and guidance - mainly in the final, three-year stage of secondary education - together with a diversification of opportunities in higher education through the IUTs. The existing baccalaureate options were made more specialized, and a number of new ones introduced in technical subjects(baccalaurOats de technicien). Students holding these still qualified in principle for entrance to all university faculties (except science); but in practice students entering fields other than those for which their courses had prepared them would usually be at a great disadvantage.

The IUTs represented the only important selective element of the reforms as a whole; they were to admit students only up to their prescribed capacity, on an assessment of their overall record (dossier). It was above all this element of selectivity, combined with the IUTs' vocational orientation and intensive mode of instruction (a high teacher -s tudent ratio, much small group and laboratory work) which made them a crucial part of the Fouchet measures, indeed '"one of the kingpins of the reforms," as Grignon and Passeron observed (1970, p. 107). In 1967, Prime Minister Georges Pompi- dou stated that if the IUTs did not succeed in attracting sufficient students

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away from them, there was a possibility that selection procedures might be imposed on the faculties (Pompidou, 1967).

Opponents of selection therefore naturally tended to criticize the IUTs both for their intended role as an opening wedge for selection within the university, and for their allegedly narrow orientation to the manpower de- mands of the economy. These critics, especially the leftist organizations of university teachers and students, also feared that IUTs' pragmatic outlook would constitute a formidable barrier to any meaningful cooperation be- tween them and the more theoretically-minded university faculties. For quite different reasons, many administrators and teachers in technical educa- tion were also hostile to the founding of the IUTs, as they were in direct competition with the BTS sections in the technical lycOes, and indeed, the IUTs' founding decree of January 1966 specified that the BTS and the DEST were to be phased out entirely.

Proponents of selection supported the IUTs for the most part, parti- cularly their pragmatic, vocational orientation; they hoped that they would attract a substantial number of baccalaureate holders away from the facul- ties, thus reducing the pressure of enrollments. However, some influential selectivists such as Jean Capelle and Raymond Aron feared that the IUTs would not have sufficient independence to establish themselves as fully equivalent to the faculties, and would therefore attract only the less ambi- tious baccalaureate holders, and dropouts from the faculties (Schriewer, 1972, pp. 454-455). The warmest support for the IUTs among outside interest groups appears to have come from the more progressive representa- tives of industry and commerce, who looked forward to the output of middle-level technicians.

The ambiguity of the IUT's position, that of a selective institution founded to attract students in a still largely non-selective university system, is vividly shown by a comparison of enrollments as projected by the Fifth French Plan in the mid-1960s with the actual development by the early 1970s. The planners envisioned that by 1972 the economy would require some 80,000 new workers each year at the skill level for which the IUTs were designed (baccalaureate plus two years). The major providers at this level, the BTS sections, were producing less than 5,000 graduates annually in 1964-65, and since they were to be phased out in any case, the IUTs had to provide all of the 80,000 graduates. With a two-year course this meant a projected enrollment of 160,000 in the IUTs by 1972 - fully half the total enrollment of the first two years of university and roughly 25 percent of the total number of university students. In fact, the IUTs fell far short of this goal; they enrolled only 35,000 students by fall 1972, which amounted to just 11.8 percent of enrollments in the first two years of university and 4.8 percent of the total university enrollment 2 . The major reason for the gap is that as long as the faculties remained open, there was no real means apart

40,000-

3qooo-

20,000- Technical Sections (BTS)

10,0oo-

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I ! I l I I I

1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974

Figure 1. Enrollments in IUTs and in higher technical sections (BTS) of punic lycOes, 1961-74.

Sources: Minist~re de l'Education Nationale, (1966, p. 81; 1973 a, 1973 c, No. 16 [Ch. 5, part: 1], p. 29); Minist6re de l'Education (1974; 1975).

from persuasions to get students to enter the IUTs; and paradoxically the very fact that the IUTs were selective served to keep their numbers down as well.

Figure 1 shows the progression' of IUT enrollments compared to those in public BTS sections; far from declining as the original policy intended, the latter stagnated for a time but have recently increased in number, thus representing renewed competition for the IUTs [3]. The IUTs are relatively efficient as regards diplomas awarded; in 1972, they granted 11,191 diplo- mas (DUTs), as compared with 10,076 BTS, 43,893 licences (awarded after three years of university), and 8,759 engineering diplomas awarded mainly by ENSI (Minist~re de l 'Education Nationale, 1974, pp. 365, 165, 386-7 , 425). Considering that over one-half the licences were in letters (23,000) and thus conferred only minimal prospects in the job market, the 11,000 DUTs appear as a substantial output.

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Instruction in the IUTs

The IUTs' mission as defined in the founding decree of January 1966 (Markiewicz-Lagneau, 1973, p. 121) is to train skilled, middle-level graduates (cadres moyens) to assume "technical functions in production, applied research and the services." The instruction is highly intensive and indeed virtually school-like in character. The two-year course consists of at least 32 hours of contact hours per student per week for 32 weeks per year, plus four weeks of apprenticeship experience, in sharp contrast to the university norm of 12 hours for 26 weeks. Instruction takes place in lectures, in small "supervised" classes (travaux dirig&), and in practical lessons such as labs (travaux pratiques) where the standard unit is 12 students per teacher. Attendance at all sessions is obligatory, and students can be (and have been) dismissed for absenteeism. Grading and assessment is continuous throughout the year (an innovation which in principle has been applied to the univer- sities generally by the 1968 Orientation Act). The diploma (diplOrne univer- sitaire de technologie - the DUT) is thus conferred not through a final examination but rather on the basis of an overall evaluation by the director of the IUT and the other instructors at the end of the second year.

The IUTs are organized into subject departments whose curricula are determined nationally, except for 20 percent of class time which is reserved for adaptations to local requirements. There are seventeen types of depart- ments, nine in the secondary or industrial sector, and eight in the tertiary sector. The most popular secondary subjects, which attract two-thirds of the sector's enrollments, are electronics, mechanics (gdnie m&anique) and civil construction (gOnie civil). The three largest tertiary departments contain 84 percent of that sector's students: administration of public and private enterprises, business techniques, and data processing (informatique).

The original plan for the IUTs called for 300 students in each local department, with 150 students in each year. These guidelines are still gener- ally followed by national policy-makers, although these figures are rarely attained; in 1973, the 239 existing departments had an average size of 148 - less than half the "ideal" figure. The discrepancy is due to a number of factors. Some departments are still growing; there is occasional underenroll- merit in the first year (usually due to multiple applications, as we will see shortly), and some attrition during and after the first year. A deliberate decision to admit less than 150 students per year is common, whether due to inadequate personnel and facilities or to preference for a smaller number. The typical IUT includes four departments, and enrollment ranges for the most part between 500 and 1,000. Of the 60 IUTs established by the fall of 1974, 18 (with 54 departments), though affiliated to a university, were in non-university towns. Fourteen departments were in separate towns to their parent IUT.

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Admissions and the Student Body

As we have seen, admission to the IUTs is selective by virtue of their limited capacity and relatively specialized curricula. In each IUT, the pro- cess is handled by a committee of teachers and qualified laymen (who are often otherwise active in the IUT's affairs); although the committee is appointed by the rector as the government official in charge of each educational region or academy, within national guidelines each IUT is effectively autonomous in its admissions policy. Indeed, selectivity is often spurred by an active desire on the part of the IUTs to maintain high standards and the market value of their diplomas, and to enhance their status relative to the rest of the university and the grandes Ocoles.

In theory, the majority of places in the IUT were to be given to holders of the baccalaureate or an equivalent certificate, but with a substan- tial proportion allotted to applicants without such qualifications, who were to be chosen by means of a special examination set by the IUT. In practice, the proportion entering by the latter path has been very small, partly because the IUTs have always had a surplus of bacheliers to choose from. In 1972, for example, just 5 percent of first-year students took such an exam, while 92 percent possessed a baccalaureate, and 3 percent some other certifi- cate (Minist~re de l 'Education Nationale, 1973 b). Clearly therefore, aca- demic achievement in relevant school subjects is the major criterion for admission, although factors such as motivation and range and depth of ability (sometimes determined by a personal interview) often play a role as well.

The precise degree of selectivity which the IUTs can exercise in choosing their students is not easy to determine, since multiple applications appear to be very common and each IUT handles them separately. Fragment- ary data on the relation of available places to the total number of applica- tions range from about 30 percent to 20 percent or less, varying somewhat from specialty to specialty and from one IUT to another. However, the real number of applicants appear to be substantially lower than such figures would imply; in fact, departments commonly accept twice as many applica- tions as there are places, and even then empty places remain (Bize, 1973, pp. 27 -28 ) - one further factor which contributes to the uncertainty of any at tempt to determine the real demand for IUT places or to plan their devel- opment more comprehensively.

The IUTs' selectivity is often given as prima facie evidence that their students are of a higher academic level than those of most (non-selective) departments of the university. This is not necessarily obvious however, given the uncertain relation between applicants and places just noted; and there- fore a closer look at the scholastic background of IUT students is in order. As we saw, 92 percent of the first-year students in 1972 held a baccalau-

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reate. Among these, 39 percent had taken one of the classical baccalaureates in mathematics and science (series C, D, and E), which have traditionally been noted for their difficulty (especially C), and 34 percent possessed one of the technical baccalaureates introduced via the Fouchet Reforms (F, G, H). In fact, the secondary or industrial departments recruited almost exclu- sively from the mathematics/science and technical baccalaureates (55 and 38 percent respectively). This tends to confirm the secondary departments' reputation for maintaining higher academic standards than the tertiary ones; and the overall data do lend some support to the thesis that the IUT students are in general more academically able than their brethren elsewhere in the university (Ministare de l'Education Nationale, 1973 b).

Despite the IUTs' failure to reach beyond the baccalaureate pool for their entrants to any significant degree, they do recruit a higher proportion of students from working class families than the universities do, as is evident

TABLE I

Social Origins of IUT and University Students (1971 72) Compared to the Active Population (in percent)

Active Fathers of Fathers French university of IUT population students students (1) (2) (3)

Executives, professionals, businessmen (cadres sup~rieurs, patrons, artisans)

13.6 38.0 26.2

Lower professionals (cadres rnoyensj 9.3 14.4 14.1

Salaried workers (employOs) 13.1 9.6 10.7

independent farmers 12.3 6.9 11.2

Foreman and workers (incl. agriculture) 51.6

Other; no response

13.9 24.4

17.2 13.4

Sources: Column l. Markiewicz-Lagneau (1973, p. 41). Columns 2 and 3, Minist~re de l 'Educat ion Nationale (1973 c, No. 17 [Ch. 5, part 2] , p. 33; and No. 16 [Ch. 5, part ll,, p. 34) . The IUT figures omit institutions with an enrollment amounting to ca. 5 percent of the total, while the university figures are simply noted as " incomplete ."

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from Table I; this tendency is more pronounced for IUTs in non-university cities (Markiewicz-Lagneau, 1973, pp. 31-33). The difference is rendered more significant by evidence that IUT students from modest backgrounds tend to have a better school record than their compatriots from a higher social stratum. It appears, then, that the IUTs tend to recruit the less able bacheliers from the upper classes and the most able students from the lower classes (Markiewicz-Lagneau, 1973, pp. 37-39, 43).

As officially stated, the basic objective of the IUTs has been to provide terminal training in preparation for employment. However, the most able graduates have always been able to go on to further study on the recommen- dation of the IUT director. In a sample of students surveyed in January 1971, 36 percent said they would like to study further (Markiewicz-Lagneau, 1973, p. 95), and it appears that roughly that proportion do so. Table II summarizes the results of the most comprehensive follow-up study available so far, based on the 1969 graduates. Nearly two years after graduation 62 percent were employed, although only two-thirds of those were in a situation which could be defined as "stable." 36 percent were pursuing some form of study (21 percent part-time, usually combined with a job). This is a higher percentage than the planners envisaged when the IUTs were estab- lished, and such figures are not infrequently taken by critics as evidence that the IUTs have been diverted from their main aim of providing vocational training [4].

Those engaged in further study attended a range of institutions; just under one-third were in university departments, and a slightly larger number were in engineering schools and comparable institutions (CEREQ, 1973, p. 52). Thirty percent of the graduates were in law, economics or administra- tive studies, and 55 percent were in science or technology. Among the respondents who specified the level they had reached, 38 percent were still in the first university cycle or analogous programs (the first two post-bacca- laureate years - the equivalent of the IUT, in fact), and 62 percent were in the second cycle (third or fourth post-baccalaureate year). Significantly, 74 percent of those in science and technology had reached second-cycle level, compared to just 40 percent in other fields (CEREQ, 1973, pp. 134-135). It is therefore apparent that the secondary departments - from which virtually all of the science and technology students came - tend to provide a better opportunity than the tertiary departments of progressing rapidly and suc- cessfully in higher education after the IUT. Moreover, the secondary depart- ments more often led to stable employment, as is evident from Table II. If we recall the fact that those same secondary departments recruit a relatively high proportion of their students from the working class, it seems obvious that they provide those students with a modest but substantial opportunity for upward social mobility.

There is considerable evidence that students evaluate the IUT exper-

TABLE II

Occupational percent)

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Status of 1969 IUT Graduates Two Years Later - Spring, 1971, (in

Stably Not Military Full- Part- Total employed a stably service time time higher educatio

employed b higher higher (4 and 5) education education c

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Men 38.7 19.8 21.1 16.5 20.2 36.7

Women 63.8 20.9 - 8.4 22.6 31.0

Graduates of secondary 43.0 18.7 d 16.2 18.3 34.5 departments

Graduates of tertiary 39.8 25.8 d 11.4 30.8 42.2 departments

Total 42.4 20.0 18.2 15.3 20.6 35.9

Source: Adapted from CEREQ (1973; pp. 39, 49, 58, 119). Note: Columns 1 4 add horizontally to 100% minus ca. 4% of the sample which was seeking employment or did not answer the relevant items. The sample of 2,361 (2,016 male, 345 female) represents 74.5% of virtually the entire graduating class of 1969 who returned a mail questionnaire.

a Stable employment was arbitrarily defined as employment without parttime studies or for men) after completion of military service. Conversely, unstable employment was defined as employment combined with part-time

higher education or (for men) before completion of military service. c Column 5 includes those persons already appearing in columns 2 and 3 who were also engaged in part-time higher education, as well as a small proportion (1%) of full-time .students seeking employment (these do not appear in column 4). d Not available in source material.

ience m u c h as pol icy-makers would like them to. A m o n g universi ty s tudents

surveyed in 1973, 78 percent saw the "acquis i t ion o f professional compe- t ence" as an i m p o r t a n t goal o f their studies, but 82 percent felt that the

universi ty fulfilled that task ineffectively, and 66 percent favored the devel-

o p m e n t o f shor t -cycle IUT- type voca t iona l studies (Actes du Colloque, 1974, p. 33). The m o s t f requent reason cited by the IUT s tudents themselves

for a t tending the IUT is the short dura t ion o f studies; over 80 percent o f the

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students say that this played some role in their choice. Other factors frequently mentioned are the advantages in finding a job and pursuing a future career, as well as the IUT's intensive teaching methods (Markiewicz- Lagneau, 1973, pp. 50-78).

The students find these positive expectations confirmed by their actual experience at the IUT. They see a clear improvement over secondary school in terms of methods and student-teacher relations. Most students feel that the IUTs provide better career prospects, professional preparation and more immediate employment opportunities than the university faculties of letters and even science. They evaluate the IUT experience less favorably with respect to the elite grandes Ocoles and other non-university schools; but even so, as many students feel that the IUTs give better professional preparation than the grandes ~coles (23 percent) as those who think the reverse. Over 80 percent urge maintaining selective admissions, which is also a characteris- tic feature of the grandes dcoles (Markiewicz-Lagneau, 1973, pp. 50-78). Such attitudes reflect a clear willingness on the part of IUT students to assess their experience in a concrete and constructive manner and indeed to view the IUTs as smaller versions of grandes dcoles.

Teaching Staff

From the outset, national policy on the staffing of the IUTs envisaged a symmetrical, tripartite sharing of tasks between teaching personnel from higher education, secondary education (the technical lycdes), and the rele- vant professions. In practice, this three-way division has not really been maintained, and the IUTs generally appear to be understaffed (Bize, 1973, pp. 27-33). Virtually no IUT appears to have actually recruited enough professional personnel to handle anywhere near the established quota of one-third of the teaching load. A report on the two largest tertiary depart- ments (administration and business techniques) found that only 2.7 percent of their instructors were recruited from the professional world (Bize, 1973, p. 27). The proportion may be higher in the secondary sector. However, in general it appears that a much larger proportion of instruction is given by secondary or higher education personnel under temporary contract, whether they are "moonlighting", supporting themselves while preparing a concours or a thesis, or simply taking any available job. Frequently therefore, no more than half the instruction is given by regularly employed full-time teachers, with damaging consequences to the curriculum.

Quite apart from this, however, the teaching Conditions are severe. The weekly teaching load ranges from three hours for professors and associate professors (rnaftres de confdrences), to six hours for lectures (rnaftres assis- tants), 12 hours for assistants, and 18 hours for secondary personnel. These figures may be doubled for labs and practical sessions. Apart from their

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formal ciassroom time, the staff are also expected to be regularly available to consult with students and follow their progress, and are also responsible for organizing student apprenticeships; all this adds up to a heavy administrative load.

The sharp division between secondary and higher education personnel is a frequent source of tension within the IUTs. Secondary staff - mainly from technical education - are in a formal sense only temporarily assigned to higher education for service in an IUT. Such service in itself provides no access to employment as a university teacher, which can only be gained by pursuing further studies toward a doctorate. University staff are relatively better off than their secondary colleagues in that their teaching load is lighter and they are permitted to do research. To be sure, IUTs do not possess research facilities, since research is not part of their program, and so individuals must seek an appropriate situation elsewhere in the university, at least if they wish to do research that requires facilities and collaborators. IUT staff in non-university cities are at a particular disadvantage if they wish to undertake research.

University personnel in the IUTs - like their colleagues in the rest of the university - depend for advancement opportunities on assessment by one of the subject sections of the national Consultative Committee of the Universi- ties (CCU). Each section consists of academics from that field: the majority are elected nationally by their colleagues and the rest are appointed by the ministry. Senior staff are in a large majority ; most sections are dominated by conservatives and research productivity is the determining criterion for evaluation. This places IUT personnel, with their heavy teaching and admini- strative duties, at a distinct disadvantage; moreover, applied research in general and certain of the IUT disciplines in particular are viewed as margin- ally important by the responsible sections of the CCU. One observer asserts flatly: "For university personnel, to become involved in the IUTs means in practice to sacrifice deliberately all possibility of promot ion" (Bize, 1973, p. 21).

The fragmentation and frustration of the IUT teaching staff has led to (heir unionization by the leftist National Union of Higher Education (SNESup); other organizations of university staff have no substantial follow- ing in the IUTs. Over 1,500 IUT staff - roughly half the total number - belong to the SNESup, and comprise a substantial proportion (over 15 percent) of its membership (Bulletin du SNESup, 1973). Although the dominant tendency in the SNESup is Communist, it has focussed mainly on quite specific grievances and status issues, demanding such measures as better research opporunities for the staff and the creation of sufficient additional teaching posts so that most of the temporary staff can be regularly em- ployed. More comprehensively, the SNESup advocates full incorporation of the IUTs into the universities, and the adoption of technological and applied

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components wherever possible in the university curriculum; this would mean the eventual integration of the grandes &oles into the university.

The Administrative Framework

When they were established in 1966, the IUTs were placed formally within the universities, as "'instituts d'universitd", analogous to the engineering schools (ENSI) and other institutes. However, the IUTs were entirely outside the faculties and in most practical respects independent of the university authorities as well. For instance, the ministry provided their budgetary and personnel allocations directly and after consultation with the councils of the IUT and the university, also appointed the director. The IUT council was small in size, with a tripartite membership of two to four representatives from elsewhere in the university, from the IUT teaching staff, and from relevant outside professions; the director and an ex-IUT student representative were also members. All this enabled the IUTs to pursue their activities in relatively complete independence from their universities, until the events of May 1968 shook French higher education to its core.

During that summer, the complex issue of what status to give the various categories of "non-university" institutions from the grandes &oles to the IUTs was inevitably raised, and it came to a head in heated debates within the French cabinet in September, when the draft of the Orientation Act was adopted to be submitted to parliament (Chalendar, 1970, pp. 8 3 - 88; Fomerand, 1973, pp. 152-156). Edgar Faure, the minister of education, advocated an extensive application of the law beyond the traditional facul- ties, and the version which he presented to the cabinet would in principle also have permitted bringing those grandes Ocoles which belonged to other ministries under the act. On the other hand, a group including Prime Minister Couve de Murville and certain other ministers who (significantly) had urged extending selection to the faculties, also wanted to exclude the ENSI and the IUTs from the provisions of the act, despite their formal attachment to the universities up to that point. This group argued that it would be "catastroph- ic" to let the university "virus" infect the more professionally-oriented institutions, which had thus far not shown the kind of disturbances which paralyzed the universities in May and June (Fomerand, 1973, p. 165).

In the end, the cabinet reached a three-fold compromise: the grandes &oles under ministries other than education were explicitly placed beyond the pale of the legislation; institutions within the jurisdiction of the educa- tion ministry but independent of the universities could be individually brought under the act by decree; and finally, the university-attached insti- tutes and schools, most notably the IUTs and the ENSI, would largely continue within the universities, although the applicability of the legislation to them was to be limited by government decrees. The fact that the latter two

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options could onty be exercised through decrees meant that the cabinet as a whole would have to endorse and could therefore also veto - any particular measures. In fact, only very few independent institutions have been brought under the Orientation Act; and although the decree fixing the status of the IUTs was promulgated in January 1969 soon after the law itself, that on the ENSI was "subjected to incessant objections by the prime minister's staff" and did not appear "until after M. Edgar Faure's departure [from the education ministry] " (Chalendar, 1970, p. 88).

The Faure Act provided for extensive changes in university admini- strative structures (Van de Graaff, 1976). The most significant of these was the formation of universities as substantial administrative entities, in place of the traditional faculties. Whereas previously the faculties within each region- al academy had been grouped into a loose university confederation, now most of the faculties were broken up into smaller "units of education and research" (UERs) and placed under newly formed universities which mostly contained less than 15,000 students, with a few ranging between 20,000 and 30,000. The policy-making body for the universities is a council comprised of representatives of professors and other teaching staff, students, non- academic staff, and outside laymen. Formal requirements for the number in each of the various categories and the less active participation of students and laymen have meant that in most cases the senior teaching staff effective- ly dominate the counciI's deliberations. The council's powers include author- ity to distribute the university's budgetary and personnel allotments among the UERs; in practice, however, its most important single act is probably the election of the university president, normally a full professor who serves a term of five years, and who cannot be immediately re-elected. The 1968 legislation is strikingly vague as regards the division of authority between the council and the president, and the university statutes appear for the most part to have allowed presidents to take an active role as initiators of policy, establishing a "r6gime prdsidentiel," while the cases where the council dominates in a "r6gime d'assembl6e" are less common.

At the sub-university level the intra-cabinet compromise, as we have seen, permitted the IUTs to become units of teaching and research within the university, but with a special status. The original motive of the cabinet majority's insistence on this was to limit the potential influence of the newly democratized decision-making organs on such units, and particularly to ensure that they maintained selective admissions policies. Specifically the decree fixing the status of the IUTs affirmed their selectivity and stipulated that new IUTs were to be established by governmental decree, whereas ordinary UERs could be created by ordinance (arrOtO) of the rector (as head of the academy) on university initiative. The IUTs' allotments of capital, operating and personnel budgets continue to come directly from the ministry, rather than from the university budget which is distributed to the

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regular UERs by the council. IUT directors are proposed and appointed by the ministry for a four-year term, although now a favorable opinion by the IUT council is required; in a regular UER, the director is elected directly by the council. The IUT teaching staff is chosen by the director, although he has to consult a committee of the IUT council, which is to include qualified professionals from outside the IUT - a requirement sharply divergent from normal university practice and one that is sometimes disregarded by the IUTs themselves. One-third of the IUT council is still composed of outsiders (this is optional for regular UERs), and among them "the representation of employers and employees must be equal" (decree of January 1969, in Journal Offi'ciel, 1972).

Altogether, these arrangements largely maintain the IUTs' independent position within the universities much as before. Ministry influence, notably in finance and instructional programs, continues to be strong; the director's position within the IUT is still predominant, and the principle of links with outside professions has been reaffirmed. Such provisions enjoy wide support within the administration and the IUTs, for the IUTs are generally felt to represent an important and still vulnerable innovation whose position must not be jeopardized by exposure to university-determined policies, particularly with regard to the selection and evaluation of students.

Yet the institutional context has altered significantly since 1968. As the new constituent units of the universities, the UERs vary greatly in size, mission and structure. Generally, however, they are substantially smaller, more specialized and more flexible entities than the former faculties, and consequently the potential for fruitful collaboration between the IUTs and other UERs has increased. Such newly created degrees as the rnaftrise de sciences et techniques, offered in 30 specialties, can logically be coordinated with various IUT programs. In Grenoble's University of Social Sciences, a rnaftrise in administration (gestion) has been created, on which the Institute of Commercial Studies and the IUT have cooperated; and the latter's relations with other UERs are generally good.

At the university level, there are many mostly informal ways in which the president and members of his staff can play a role in IUT affairs. In one case, a president was instrumental in obtaining the resignation of the IUT director, who was generally regarded as inflexible and losing touch; he then maneuvered to appoint the successor of his choice, who also appears to have been favored by the IUT staff. On their side, the IUTs can take various steps to encourage good relations with the university. For example, one director makes a point of voluntarily submitting staff nominations to a university committee, reasoning that IUT personnel would be in a better position to pursue research if they were endorsed by their university colleagues. In fact, the treatment of research funds for the university personnel teaching in the IUT is a common object of negotiation between university and IUT; since

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the IUT is not a research institution, their allocation is made to the university as part of its research budget and the manner in which it is then distributed to the UERs where IUT personnel are carrying out research can substantially affect their situation. As far as other parts of the budget are concerned, the 1969 decree on the status of the 1UTs does provide that if the IUT so requests, its entire budgetary allocation can be given to the university for distribution to the IUT. However, as far as I know this clause has never been invoked.

In the internal affairs of the IUT, the predominance of the executive over the representative council is generally as strong as in the university itself. The director tends to rely on his department heads in making deci- sions, and the IUT council meets relatively seldom, usually serving more as an arena for discussion of general issues and ventilation of specific grie- vances than as an active policy-making organ [5].

The outside representatives in the IUT council generally play a rather modest role in its affairs. Those involved as individuals are coopted by the council often at the suggestion of the director, while organizational represen- tatives are named by the groups themselves at the council's invitation. In Paris, such groups include the top national business and labor associations, while in the provinces local and regional groups predominate. Generally, however, persons that are both qualified and willing to actively participate are rare, and often in demand by more than one academic council. For the IUTs the most essential function of outside professionals is to help in finding apprenticeships for students and jobs for graduates, as well as organize recurrent training programs for adults (formation continue). In this latter area, which received a national go-ahead through legislation in July 1971, the IUTs are far ahead of most other UERs, due in no small measure to their satisfactory external relations.

National Policy-making for the IUTs: Problems and Prospects

At the level of central administration, the former Ministry of National Education, which was notorious for its resistance over the years to all reforms aimed at coordinating its balkanized divisions, has been reorganized since June 1974 into the Ministry of Education and a separate, completely independent State Secretariat for the Universities, which is itself a ministry in all but name. It is probable that the development of the IUTs will be encouraged under this separate regime; in fact, Jean-Louis Quermonne, an influential former president of the University of the Social Sciences at Grenoble and well-known as a supporter of the IUTs, has been appointed director of a key division within the Secretariat.

In 1968 the ministry appointed "national pedagogic commissions" to provide advice on problems relating to the development of the various IUT

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specialties. The active members came for the most part from the relevant branches of industry and from the IUTs themselves (directors and depart- ment heads). The administration did not maintain very close relations with these commissions, especially with regard to supplying them with informa- tion so that they tended to serve less as consultative units than as channels for communicating grievances and demands to the ministry [6]. A more im- portant body is the Assembly of IUT Directors (an informal counterpart to the Conference of University Presidents). With its officers carefully balanced between secondary and tertiary departments, Paris and the provinces, the Assembly frankly serves as a pressure group to publicize the IUTs and articu- late their policy interests to the administration.

The attitude of interest groups regarding the IUTs is divided. As indicated, the support of French business and industry, especially its more progressive sectors, was crucial to getting the IUT experiment under way, and much of this support still continues. Nevertheless, the IUT diploma, the DUT, is still not generally recognized in the "collective conventions" nego- tiated between employers (both private and public) and trade unions, which would provide clear slots in the job hierarchy for DUT holders. More insidiously, outright hostility to the IUTs and their graduates is sometimes manifested by employers' groups, who complain that the IUTs' standards have dropped and that there is now less emphasis on their practical/vocation- al aims, due to theoretical preoccupations resulting from the closer links with the universities since 1968. Such views feed on the antagonism which large sectors of French business have always felt for the university, as left-wing and opposed to free enterprise; their advocates would obviously like the IUTs to revert to preparing highly specialized technicians, like BTS sections in the technical lycOes, and in the last resort might prefer to see the latter replace the IUTs.

Critics of the IUTs from the left - represented most concretely by the SNESup - argue in exactly the opposite fashion. They support the IUTs as providing a vocationally-oriented option desired by students, but emphasize that they cannot remain a dead end; the IUTs' specialization must be tempered by greater integration with the university and the progressive development of more extensive technological instruction and research in the university.

These sharply divergent views suggest the outer span of policy alter- natives. On the one hand, if the IUTs were to adapt mainly to local demands for narrow-gauge technicians, they would in practice have to accept sub- university status. They would thereby gain support from many local em- ployers, but they would also have to compete more frequently with the BTS sections in local technical lycdes, and this would be a political contest of uncertain outcome. As it is, BTS sections and the smaller IUTs in non-univer- sity cities have often been established in response to locally-based political

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pressures, frequently linked to the electoral needs of the Gaullist majority. Recent studies of French local politics have emphasized the continuing resourcefulness of local notables (who in addition are often deputies or ministers) in getting things done through the central bureaucracy. The local mayor plays a key role as an "activist administrative entrepreneur," usually in alliance with the prefect (Tarrow, 1974, p. 18; Suleiman, 1974, pp. 3 6 3 - 368). For such politico-administrators, the establishment of a local IUT or even a single IUT department can be an enticing prospect. The Secretary of State for Universities has recently pledged to put a stop to such "electoral IUTs," adding that arrangements for consultation with the Ministry of Education - still responsible for the BTS - should henceforth ensure that both IUT and BTS sections are developed in accordance with regional plans, which has not previously been the case (Le Figaro, 1975).

The most practical alternative then, is for the IUTs to maintain and strengthen their position within the universities. However, this inevitably implies the pursuit of full ""parity of esteem" with other UERs, at least in some sense, and presents a further basic option: whether the IUTs should strive for full status by maintaining their distinctive technological and vocational role, or by simply trying to emulate the rest of the university. The latter option, imitating the other UERs in hopes of some day reaching the same status plateau, amounts to what the British, referring to the development of the polytechnics, call "academic drift," (Pratt and Burgess, 1974; Scott, 1975). Some of the SNESup's proposals (concerned above all with the status of the teaching staff) could have this consequence, as for example the idea that all IUT personnel should be involved in research.

The more defensible option, obviously, would be to strengthen the IUTs' original mission, and indeed the SNESup recognizes this in stressing their role as technological institutes. Quermonne strongly underlines the IUTs' special character, claiming that their part "can and must be decisive if the new universities are t o . . . help to create a modern culture based on the necessary alliance of science and technique, general training and technologi- cal know-how" (OECD, 1973, p. 228). The general success of IUT graduates in finding jobs, coupled with a distinct trend in the rest of the university toward providing more diversified and technologically oriented programs including recurrent training, may indicate if anything that events are follow- ing the path urged by Quermonne. In any case, there is little evidence that the IUTs are merely "acting as an integral part" of the first two university years, as some observers fear (Scott, 1975, pp. 92-93).

All of French higher education is currently suffering from serious financial constraints; since 1970, the budget as a whole has lagged behind inflation and capital expenditure has dropped sharply (Orivel, 1975). The IUTs' share of funds appears to have dropped, though their allocations are still generally higher than those of other sectors of the university; and

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a l toge the r in fact , t hey have m u d d l e d th rough wi th a fair a m o u n t of success so far. Indeed, in spi te o f the radical p lanning on their e s t ab l i shmen t in 1966

- enrol l ing 50 pe rcen t o f f irst-cycle s tuden ts wi th in five years would have

been a t ruly r evo lu t iona ry feat - the IUTs have ac tual ly d e m o n s t r a t e d the

ut i l i ty o f an inc rementa l i s t s t ra tegy of innova t ion [7 ] . The i r poli t ical and adminis t ra t ive pos i t ion is sub t ly ba lanced be tween the ma jo r forces o f

central and local gove rnmen t , e m p l o y e r s and t rade unions, and t radi t ional

academics o f the r ight and left , and has enabled t h e m to assert their role

ef fec t ively and to p e r f o r m func t ions b e y o n d their p r i m a r y one o f voca t iona l

training, such as fos ter ing a m o d e s t degree o f social mob i l i t y and academic

f lexibi l i ty in a hierarchical and inf lexible sys tem. The case o f the IUTs reminds us once again tha t i t is polit ics, no t planning, which u l t ima te ly

de te rmines the fate o f m o s t ins t i tu t iona l innovat ions .

Acknowledgements

Much of the material in this study is based on interviews with admini- strators and academics conducted during the summer of 1974 in Paris and Grenoble. I am grateful to Burton R. Clark of Yale for support from a

/

National Institute of Education grant and to the International Institute for Educational Planning for generously providing office facilities in Paris. Help- ful comments were provided by Franqois d'Arcy, Francois Orivel, and in particular by Dorotea Furth.

Notes

1 The position of the ENSI and (later) of the IUTs was based on a decree of 1920, providing for instituts de facultO and instituts d'universit~ to undertake tasks of professional training and applied research which could not be carried out effectively within the rigid framework of the traditional faculties (Schriewer, 1972, pp. 84-88).

2 The targets for 1972 were an annual production of 80,000 graduates (ca. t0 percent of an age cohort) at manpower levels I and II (4-7 years of higher education), 80,000 (10 percent) at level III (2 years of higher education - the IUTs), and 120,000 (15 percent) at level IV, the baccalaureate (Bernard, 1970, pp. 102-103). The actual figures for 1972 are from the Ministate de l'Education Nationale (1974, pp. 329, 370-378). The Sixth Plan committed the same error of over-optimism, although more modestly; it forecast (in 1971) an IUT enrollment of between 67,000 and 105,000 by fall 1975, whereas in fact the figures barely surpassed 40,000 (Commission de l'Education Nationale, 1971 ).

3 The competition is even more marked if BTS enrollments in agricultural lyc~es (under the Ministry of Agriculture) and in the private sector are considered. The latter include such marginal specialties as secretarial skills, but with them the total BTS enrollments were over 37,000 in 1973 - nearly equalling the IUTs' 39,000 (Minist~re de l'Educa- tion, 1974).

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4 Official estimates of the proportion who do continue are lower than these figures, and it is likely that a number of students do so without formal authorization from the director of their IUT.

5 Students do not appear to participate very actively in the IUT councils, although they may have up to one-third of the seats (laymen are required to have one-third and the rest - one third or more - are taken by the teaching staff). However, the IUT students' record of participation in elections under the Orientation Act has been consistently better than that of most of the other students in their university, reaching 77 percent in the first UER elections in 1969 (Chalendar, 1970, p. 139). Although students have generally turned out in steadily decreasing proportions for UER elec- tions since 1969, smaller UERs and those with a professional or vocational orientation tend to have the best voting records (Boussard, 1974), and the relatively high electoral participation of IUT students appears to reflect these dual tendencies.

6 Bize (1973, pp. 4 4 - 4 5 ) briefly recounts the frustrations of the two commissions which he chaired on administration and business techniques; they ceased to meet in 1972, partly as a protest against the administration's indifference. By 1973, the other commissions had lapsed, and were not generally re-formed until 1975. It should be noted that the heads of departments in each specialty and the "Union of the Presidents of IUTs" (the laymen who preside over the IUT councils) both hold regular meetings.

7 This finding is consistent with Fomerand's assertion (1975) that the 1968 Orientation Act fits into a general pattern of piecemeal incremental reform of French higher education during the past two decades, contrary to the "stalemate society" thesis put forward by Crozier (1970), among others. However, I wouId hold that reforms prior to t968 were for the most part less significant than Fomerand maintains and that change has accelerated since then.

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