Grande école
Grandes écoles are part of an alternative educational system that operates alongside the mainstream French public university system, and take the shape of institutes dedicated to teaching, research and professional training in either pure natural and social sciences, or applied sciences such as engineering, architecture, business administration, or public policy and administration.
[3][4][5] Grandes écoles primarily admit students based on their national ranking in written and oral exams called concours, which are organized annually by the French Ministry of Education.
Five military engineering academies and graduate schools of artillery were established in the 17th century in France, such as the école de l'artillerie de Douai (established in 1697) and the later école du génie de Mézières (established in 1748), wherein mathematics, chemistry and sciences were already a major part of the curriculum taught by first-rank scientists such as Pierre-Simon Laplace, Charles Étienne Louis Camus, Étienne Bézout, Sylvestre-François Lacroix, Siméon Denis Poisson, Gaspard Monge (most of whom were later to form the teaching corps of École Polytechnique during the Napoleonic era).
Finally, the training of the lower grades of staff, who might today be called ‘production engineers’, was assured to an even greater extent by the development of Ecoles d’Arts et métiers, of which the first was established at Châlons-sur-Marne in 1806 and the second at Angers in 1811 (both reorganized in 1832), with a third at Aix-en-Provence in 1841.
There is no doubt that in the 1860s France had the best system of higher technical and scientific education in Europe.During the latter part of the 19th century and in the 20th century, more grandes écoles were established for education in businesses as well as newer fields of science and technology, including Rouen Business School (NEOMA Business School) in 1871, Sciences Po Paris in 1872, École nationale supérieure des télécommunications in 1878, Hautes Études commerciales in 1881,[14] École supérieure d'électricité in 1894, Ecole des hautes Etudes commerciales du Nord in 1906 , Ecole Supérieure des Sciences économiques et commerciales in 1907, and Supaero in 1909.
The success of the German and Anglo-Saxon university models from the late 19th century reduced the influence of the French system in some of the English-speaking world.
The term grande école is not employed in the French education code, with the exception of a quotation in the social statistics.
To be admitted into most French grandes écoles, most students study in a two-year preparatory program in one of the CPGEs (see below) before taking a set of competitive national exams.
The national exams are sets of written tests, given over the course of several weeks, that challenge the student on the intensive studies of the previous two years.
Preparatory classes with the highest success rates in the entrance examinations of the top grandes écoles are highly selective.
[15] It is also possible to join these schools in third year after a preparatory class or university and then the recruitment is based on a contest or the student results.
Most of these five-year grandes écoles are public, with very low admission fees (between 601€ and 2,350€ per year), and are free for national scholarship holders.
Most of them simply include the two-year preparatory class in their program while others like INSA Toulouse chose the Bachelor's master's doctorate system (BMD or LMD in French) to start the specialization earlier.
The French Grandes écoles mostly do not fit into the international, Anglo-American framework regarding their diplomas, nor in the European Bologna system.
In 2007, the OECD remarked in a report that "their diplomas do not fit easily into the increasingly standardised international nomenclature for academic study ...
[17] However, some Grandes écoles have decided to adopt the standard, European Bologna system of diplomas recently in order to better integrate themselves in the international academic competition.
[17] In their 2008 book European Universities in Transition, Carmelo Mazza, Paolo Quattrone and Angelo Riccaboni underlined that "the vast majority of Grandes Ecoles do not give any degree" upon completion of undergraduate studies, but that "[i]n practice, for accreditation or student exchange purposes, they grant a certificate of 'equivalence to a bachelor's degree'".
For example, the semi-private ESCP Business School has signed a partnership agreement to award a PhD in management from Panthéon-Sorbonne University.
Full-time faculty researchers to assume their responsibility as teaching staff by giving lectures, accompanying students in their projects, participating in the campus life and representing the school during symposia.
Their contractual number of working hours is defined at the beginning of each academic year in a lump sum workload timetable.
As such, they are deeply involved in their respective campus' life and accountable for the teaching quality as well as the pedagogic continuous improvement of the School.
Visiting professors are teaching staff which hold a chair along another activity, e.g. a consultant or entrepreneur giving lectures once or twice a week.
Grandes écoles can be classified into following broad categories: These schools train researchers and professors and may be a beginning for executive careers in public administration or business.
Many French Nobel Prize and Fields Medal laureates were educated at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, Lyon or Paris-Saclay.
The schools encourage their students to obtain university diplomas in partner institutions while providing extra classes and support.
Many engineering schools recruit most of their students who have completed their education in scientific preparatory classes (2 years of post-baccalaureat study).
Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers The following schools usually train each student for a more specific area in science or engineering: 11.
Only a small number of its students progress to military careers, while between a fifth and a quarter choose to remain in France to work for the state's technical administrations.
[30] Since 1975, the Comité d'études sur les formations d'ingénieurs has studied the questions of training and job placement for engineers graduating from grandes écoles.
