Throughout the XNUMXthe century and until the 1920s, France was one of the main poles of attraction foreign students thanks to the liberality of its welcome. The measures of openness, such as the creation of colleges, high schools and cultural institutes abroad, scholarships, then the introduction of equivalences, French courses and adapted certificates have shaped a policy without equal in Europe, at the service prestige and diplomatic influence of France. Thus, between 1880 and 1930, the number of foreign students grew faster in France than elsewhere (Germany, Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Italy, United Kingdom), rising from 5,6 % of total student population in 1890 to 15% in 1910.
Today, according to figures from the Ministry of Higher Education, France remains an attractive destination for internationally mobile students. In 2019-2020, the country welcomed 365 foreign students, i.e. almost 000% of the total population enrolled in French establishments (13 million). This flow is on the rise, driven by engineering and business schools.
However, in ten years, student mobility has increased by 68% worldwide and by only 32% in France. France would therefore experience a relative loss of its attractiveness. The number of foreign students it recruits is increasing less rapidly than the world average, and their share in the total French student population is falling slightly (-1% between 2014 and 2019). Moved from third to sixth place in the ranking of host countries, France is overtaken by non-English-speaking countries, such as Germany and Russia.
While over the last decade the overall number of internationally mobile students has increased considerably (in average of 5,5% per year), this increase mainly concerned China, Russia and other countries outside the OECD zone, ie the countries of the South. The United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France and Canada remain the main host countries in absolute numbers, but the growth is faster in non-OECD countries where the number has increased by 7% per year on average, compared to 4,9% in OECD countries. Foreign students enrolled in non-OECD countries now represent around 31% of the world's mobile student population, compared to 23% in 1998.
An organization of universities that is difficult to read internationally
In one investigation report of 2021, the Court of Auditors paints a mixed picture of the French university. While welcoming the efforts that have enabled the latter to position itself at the top of international rankings, it notes the failure of successive reforms, from the law relating to the freedoms and responsibilities of universities (LRU) of 2007, in terms of international readability.
By recalling the consecutive injunctions, sometimes contradictory, which – at a “frenzied pace” – have led French establishments to regroup, merge, sign association contracts and develop site policies, the Court wonders.
The question of branding is crucial for readability on an international scale. Paradoxically, by dint of wanting to promote the excellence and visibility of higher education by leveraging its strong territorial roots, public policies seem to ignore the seniority and prestige of the establishments' brand in the construction from worldwide reputations.
The universities that occupy the first places in the major world rankings all, without exception, value an old brand, unchanged since their foundation. Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale, Cambridge, London School of Economics, Tsinghua, the University of Tokyo: none of these universities would consider swapping their historical brand for a newly created acronym or a generic geographical designation of territory.
The insufficient international notoriety of French higher education is, according to the Court of Auditors, the consequence of an incomplete autonomy. Contrary to initial ambitions, the reforms have not enabled universities, which are largely dependent on subsidies for public service charges, to acquire the management autonomy and the means necessary to face the international competition which is played out on infrastructures, reception conditions and student life, as well as scholarships and job prospects after graduation.
Without forgetting, more recently, the institution's commitment to sustainable development and social responsibility, an area in which French higher education seems to be gaining lagging behind European neighbors, and which is increasingly one of the selection criteria for international candidates.
France attracts fewer and fewer students from French and African high schools
If France is struggling to keep up with the acceleration of international competition on new breeding grounds, made up mainly of English-speaking students from Asia (China, India, Vietnam), it also seems to be losing ground on its traditional networks of influence. : Baccalaureate holders from French high schools abroad, just like candidates from French-speaking African countries, are beginning to abandon France to turn to new destinations.
For more than a century, the network of French education abroad has been one of the most powerful tools of France's influential diplomacy. Entrusted since 1990 to the Agency for French Education Abroad (AEFE), this network, with a density unique in the world, today relies on 522 establishments in 139 countries welcoming 370 students, including approximately more than 000% are not French nationals.
These foreign high school students, French-speaking and trained in French secondary education programs, have historically been numerous to opt for France. Bearing, according to a Campus France survey carried out in 2018, the proportion of foreign high school graduates from French high schools abroad who choose to do their higher education in France has fallen by 2% since 2015, while the number of establishments is increasing.
"Are they shying away from France", as the titled Le Monde in an article from June 2019? In fact, they were 46,2% in 2018 to turn to France, against 47,7% in 2014. On the other hand, they are more numerous than before to choose Canada, the United States or the United Kingdom ( +25,6% between 2013 and 2017). Among all the AEFE baccalaureate holders who chose France, 56,2% come from a high school on the African continent, but this public is also in decrease.
One out of two foreign students in France is from an African country. France thus remains the first country of destination for African students on the move, ahead of the United States, South Africa and the United Kingdom. Among the top 10 country of origin of foreign students in France, 6 are African: Morocco (1), Algeria (2), Senegal (4), Tunisia (5), Ivory Coast (7), Cameroon (10). However, the share of African students in France has been declining for fifteen years, to the benefit of countries such as Saudi Arabia, French-speaking Canada, Germany, Italy, Ukraine, Malaysia, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates, considered more attractive.
For demographic, geopolitical and climatic reasons, Africa's share of global student mobility will continue to rise sharply in the years to come. Will France be able to position itself?
Through the creation of Franco-foreign universities in Africa, it wishes to support the development of higher education on the spot. However, the strategy " Welcome in France " of 2018, which refocuses student attractiveness on excellence and on the diversification of countries of origin, together with a differentiation of tuition fees for applicants from outside the European Union, is perceived in this region as the expression of a chosen immigration policy, thus posing a major challenge to the ability to maintain the attractiveness of the French university.
Moreover, France is historically a training ground for world leaders (heads of state, heads of government, etc.). But, mirroring the declines observed for the general public, France is also in loss of momentum in the formation of world elites, unlike the United Kingdom and the United States, which are progressing.
French research in decline
The image of the French university would also be harmed by an insufficiently competitive market for research personnel on an international scale. The proportion of foreigners among the tenured teacher-researchers recruited remains modest, standing at 10-15% depending on the positions.
Unlike Anglo-Saxon and Asian countries, France is characterized by a high rate of endorrecruitment, namely the recruitment of teacher-researchers by the establishment in which they carried out their doctorate or they were lecturer, thus creating a brake on the arrival of foreign teachers which adds to the low attractiveness of salaries and development prospects, especially in the public sector.
As for young researchers, France remains among the 10 most attractive countries in the world for foreign doctoral students but, unlike other OECD countries, this number is only down since 2013 (-9%), while Germany, for the same period, achieved an increase of +57% and Switzerland has more foreign doctoral students than nationals (56%).
The ability to attract scientific talent is not insignificant because it strongly conditions national performance in terms of innovation. The American press agency Bloomberg, which establishes every year the Global Innovation Index, a ranking of countries according to their innovation capacities, thus analyzes the relative decline of the United States, ranked first country in the world in 2013, and which disappeared from the top 10 in 2021. Even if the American universities are world famous, the restrictions due to the migration policy recent years vis-à-vis students and researchers could be the cause of this poor performance.
The countries that consistently top this index – South Korea, Singapore, Switzerland and Germany – stand out for their proactive policies for welcoming foreign scientists and for globally competitive universities. France is absent from this list although it is one of the countries with a high research coefficient.
While French researchers continue to be regular Nobel laureates, many of them have spent most of their scientific careers abroad, like many other intellectual professions emigrated in recent years. The last report of the Science and Technology Observatory published by Hcéres in 2021 confirms that the place of French research is slowly but constantly declining, both in number of publications and in impact index. In 15 years, France has gone from 6e the 9e rank of the leading publishing countries and its publications are cited less and less.
New entrants are making rapid progress in many disciplines and, unlike France, specialize in the fields with the highest global publication or the most dynamic. the low level of funding public and private sector of French research (2,22% in 2016, below the OECD average) contrasts with the strategies of scientific power of many emerging countries, such as the China or Singapore.
An academic attractiveness weighed down by migration policies?
In a context of increased international competition and redefinition of balances, French higher education has assets linked to its history but comes up against the difficult convergence between the multiple objectives that public policies impose on it in turn: diplomacy of influence, technological innovation at the service of economic development, increase in own economic resources, internationalization…
It is undoubtedly in the area of migration policy that the difficulties of coordination with the policy of university attractiveness are most evident. While France wishes to increase its capacity for innovation and research, the retention of its young foreign graduates remains a challenge. According to a study by the Center for Studies and Research on Qualifications (Cereq) near 40% of foreign graduates return home after graduation.
The transition from studies to employment often proves to be difficult and the granting of a residence permit at the end of studies, in particular for the highly qualified, remains subject to criteria of minimum wage or of adequacy between employment and level of qualification. . Even more surprisingly, France is one of the countries which integrate the fewest migrants into its labor market without succeeding in transforming this potential into a source of innovation and growth for its economy. Their professional integration is all the more difficult and slow as the proportion of low-skilled migrants is higher in France than in its European neighbours.
However, it was precisely between the middle of the XIXe century and the Belle Époque, when France stood out in Europe for its liberal reception policy reserved for foreign students from all continents, including victims of religious persecution and political discrimination, that the influence of its universities was the most brilliant and its intellectual influence outside its borders the most decisive...
Alessia Lefebure, Sociologist, member of the UMR Arènes (CNRS, EHESP), School of Advanced Studies in Public Health (EHESP)
This article is republished from The Conversation under Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.