In France: Tense Times follow the Training Reform Upheaval
Résumé
France has recently undergone a teacher training reform (2010-2011), in the context of the Bologna Process, which started in 2002. We are still in the early stages of this reform today. It was carried out in an extremely tense context with universities and politicians being very critical of the IUFM (Instituts de Formation des Maîtres, which were the only structure in charge of teacher training), and even the former French president himself publicly asserting they had disappeared. At the same time, the drastic reduction in the number of teachers in primary and secondary schools (because of the government’s policy of the reducing the number of State-employed) gave this reform a financial dimension and therefore strengthened opposition to it.
And indeed, this reform has brought very strong, although sometimes contradictory, opposition from different actors. On the one hand, the faculties (UFR)*, and above all history faculties , which had previously been in charge of initial training in the different disciplines, were afraid for the future of their research masters (which would be in competition with the vocational masters); and on the other hand, the IUFM which were in danger of disappearing and who argued in favour of vocational masters. The reform in teacher training profoundly affected the universities, where didactics was traditionally poorly considered (and this was particularly true in faculties for humanities and social sciences). Very few departments (such as the Centre de Formation et d’Études sur l’Enseignement des Disciplines, CFEED) de Paris7-Denis Diderot) provided training and research in didactics and, after the Ph D, the specialists of history didactics could only find positions in the IUFM (at the time these institutions were independent schools, outside the universities).
To add to these difficulties, the reform of teacher training in the context of the Bologna Process was at odds with the traditional mode of teacher recruitment. In France, teachers are State-employed and have to pass a very competitive exam, the CAPES*, considered as an important element of Republican democracy. The future of this exam was questioned in the reform. Moreover, at the same time the government announced a very important reduction in the time devoted to training newly qualified teachers (stagiaires), and this caused further outcry (for example from the trade unions).
For all these reasons, the introduction of masters in teacher training courses was a very controversial process, and recent studies, commissioned by the very government who conducted this reform seem to confirm some of the criticisms.
To understand the reform and the problems it has created, we have first to consider the academic context in which it took place, together with the place of this discipline, which is traditionally considered to be important for the education of citizens.
Secondly, we are going to see the consequences and the problems created by this reform in teacher training, the basis of which (the masters) seems to be here to stay. Indeed, if the new government set up after the presidential election in May 2012 seems to intend to make some changes (particularly for the training of stagiaires), it is very unlikely that the BA/MA reform of teacher training will be abandoned.