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STUDYING IN FRANCE

EDUCATION

Two French universities make it into ‘top 100’

Only two French universities made it into the latest top 100 ranking published on Tuesday, in a list dominated by the UK and the US.

Published: 15 September 2015 10:21 CEST
Two French universities make it into 'top 100'
Photo of student in Paris: Shutterstock

The Ecole normale supérieure in Paris was ranked as France's top university and came 23rd overall in the QS World University Rankings, rising one place from last year's tables.

The university, which scored well in philosophy and natural sciences, is “widely considered to be the most selective and most challenging institution of higher learning and research in France,” noted QS.
 

The Ecole normale supérieure in Paris. Photo: AFP
 
The university boasts laureates including novelist Jean-Paul Sartre and philosopher Michel Foucault, as well as 12 Nobel Laureates across all fields.
 
Elsewhere in France, the Ecole Polytechnique came in 40th, dropping from 35th last year. 

There were an additional 21 French universities that made the top 500, with the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC) at 137th the next highest rated among them.

The ranking is just the latest global table to suggest French universities are struggling as a whole to compete with other countries.

The UK managed four of the top ten alone, and 18 in the top 100. The US could lay claim to four of the top five and 30 in the top 100. Elsewhere in Europe, Germany boasted four in the top 100 and Sweden had two.

The number one university in the world, according to QS, is the United States' MIT, closely followed by Harvard, with Stanford and the United Kingdom's Cambridge claiming a shared third place.

The QS World University Rankings annually rate 800 universities, based on measures including academic reputation, reputation among employers, citations, mentoring and student performance. The full rankings can be viewed here.

While France as a country may not have shone in the ranking, Paris has a stellar reputation when it comes to city by city comparisons. The capital has come out on top in QS rankings for years running when it comes to the world's “best student cities”.

READ ALSO: Studying in France – what you need to know

Studying in France: what you need to know

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EDUCATION

Sweden’s Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

Sweden's opposition Social Democrats have called for a total ban on the establishment of new profit-making free schools, in a sign the party may be toughening its policies on profit-making in the welfare sector.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:09 CEST
Sweden's Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

“We want the state to slam on the emergency brakes and bring in a ban on establishing [new schools],” the party’s leader, Magdalena Andersson, said at a press conference.

“We think the Swedish people should be making the decisions on the Swedish school system, and not big school corporations whose main driver is making a profit.” 

Almost a fifth of pupils in Sweden attend one of the country’s 3,900 primary and secondary “free schools”, first introduced in the country in the early 1990s. 

Even though three quarters of the schools are run by private companies on a for-profit basis, they are 100 percent state funded, with schools given money for each pupil. 

This system has come in for criticism in recent years, with profit-making schools blamed for increasing segregation, contributing to declining educational standards and for grade inflation. 

In the run-up to the 2022 election, Andersson called for a ban on the companies being able to distribute profits to their owners in the form of dividends, calling for all profits to be reinvested in the school system.  

READ ALSO: Sweden’s pioneering for-profit ‘free schools’ under fire 

Andersson said that the new ban on establishing free schools could be achieved by extending a law banning the establishment of religious free schools, brought in while they were in power, to cover all free schools. 

“It’s possible to use that legislation as a base and so develop this new law quite rapidly,” Andersson said, adding that this law would be the first step along the way to a total ban on profit-making schools in Sweden. 

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