Crush hour French bureaucrats have set out to woo more students. But it's not that easy, say Anna McQueen and Verity Evans

Concerned by the plummeting number of foreigners studying in French universities, the education ministry has established a new agency to boost the country's share of a global market worth pounds 1.3 billion a year. But according to many overseas students in France, what is needed is a radical o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Guardian (London)
Main Author ANNA MCQUEEN AND VERITY EVANS
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London (UK) Guardian News & Media Limited 13.04.1999
Subjects
College students
Exchange programs
Foreign students
Recruitment
France
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Summary:Concerned by the plummeting number of foreigners studying in French universities, the education ministry has established a new agency to boost the country's share of a global market worth pounds 1.3 billion a year. But according to many overseas students in France, what is needed is a radical overhaul of its entire tertiary education sector. Edufrance, based in Nice, has the task of reversing the trend. In 10 years the proportion of foreigners at French universities has fallen from 12.5 per cent of the student population to 8.5 per cent. `Our education system, which for a long time has benefited from an image of quality, is losing ground in what some call `the world market',' said Claude Allegre, France's minister for education. Now third in the global rankings, with 130,000 overseas students from a total of two million, France's aim is to compete with countries like the US, the undisputed leader, which has 560,000 foreign students registered at its universities each year.
ISSN:0261-3077