Now, isn’t this frustrating. After a hard day’s work, putting all effort in converting my thoughts to text, I read this: Philip M Parker is the world’s fastest book author, and given that he has been at it only for about five years and already has more than 85,000 books to his name, he is also probably the most prolific. Parker himself says the total is well over 200,000.

So how does Philip M Parker (professor of innovation, business and society at Insead in France) do all that? When he turns to a new subject, he seizes and shakes it till several books, or several hundred, emerge. Parker invented a machine that writes books. He says it takes about 20 minutes to write one. I don’t know what kind of device this is, but I am sure I want one! Beats an iPod, Kindle or a Mac Air anytime. Next week, the Education Guardian Weekly will have a closer look at the machine…

Update: here is how it works and here’s a video

Filed in: France, Humor, Innovation, Technology, USA | Comment »

French President Sarkozy’s plans for reforming the French economy and the French public sector appears to cause some resistance. From opera employees to fishermen, train drivers, civil servants and postmen, there is hardly a sector that does not complain of some ‘right’ being eroded. Transport workers are striking over government plans to do away with special retirement privileges; Civil servants will go on strike over a plan to streamline the bureaucracy; Judges and court clerks plan a protest against reforms to the court system; Air France cabin crew have threatened to resume a strike in time for the Christmas season…

In this setting, it won’t be a surprise that the students are taking it to the streets as well, to protest against the French university reforms and the  new university law. The new law injects 1 billion euros into higher education, grants universities more freedom to choose their own students and opens the way for some private sector financing to boost the funding of universities. The reforms sparked the fear of privatisation and too much involvement of business in academic maters. Juliette Griffond of the French national student union explained why students are afraid of the reforms:

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Filed in: France, Higher Education, Politics | Comment »

Nicolas Sarkozy has made higher education reform one of the main issues in his early presidency. In general, the French universities are underfunded and inefficient. Higher education is free (apart from a small registration fee) and funded almost totally by taxpayers money. Universities are state agencies, staff are civil servants and institutional autonomy is lacking. Unsurprisingly, autonomy is the key word of the reforms announced by Sarkozy and Valérie Pécresse, the higher-education minister.

She clarified here autonomy plans in the Economist:

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Filed in: France, Higher Education, Politics | 1 Comment »

Higher Education in ‘Old Europe’ has had some pretty bad exposure again. Examples from Germany and France show that free education can be pretty costly. The Dutch ScienceGuide has a small item on an awkward German issue. Roughly translated and summarised:

Five lecturers for 3000 students in German Linguistics was not sufficient at Paderborn University. “One professor had been ill for a long time and another lectureship was discontinued” the students complained and they took matters in their own hands. They collected money and recruited a lecturer from Bielefeld. She responded: “Of course I can only do this because it is only a onetime solution and because I’m very flexible due to my half-time position in Bielefeld.” The executive board of the university has to check whether this complies with the university regulations. After the introduction of tuition fees next year (which was a controversial issue) both the university and the students hope for a more permanent solution.

This of course is a unique situation. The New York Times however, reports on the Nanterre campus of the University of Paris to illustrate the general situation in French higher education (except for the Grand Ecoles). Read for yourself and you’ll conclude that it’s not a pretty picture. In my view, the following passage best illustrates the cost of free education:

A second-year student in law and history complained about the lack of courses in English for students of international law. But asked whether he would be willing to pay a higher fee for better services, he replied: “The university is a public service. The state must pay.” A poster that hangs throughout the campus halls echoed that sentiment: “To study is a right, not a privilege.”

Of course, education is (to some extent) a ‘right’ that should be accessible regardless of class or status. But if free education can’t be sustained, high quality education seems to become a privilege for the few.

Filed in: Economics, Europe, France, Higher Education | Comment »