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

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:

We are not against business funding, but against the business sector having decision-making powers regarding university curricula and diplomas. Just imagine if there is a diploma that corresponds to one single enterprise and job and then that enterprise shuts down. The employee and his diploma would have no value after that.

Asked whether the current diplomas correspond to the needs of business and whether students can easily find a job after graduation, she replied:

the current unemployment rates in France do not depend on the quality of university education and the diplomas students have. University autonomy will not improve education, as the quality of education is more a question of budget and reform of the university pedagogy.

Current university education gives young graduates a certain ‘package’ of qualifications and capacities, after which each enterprise needs to train the young graduates internally to correspond to the enterprise’s specific needs. It is important that university education is not too professionalised and doesn’t simply allow one profession afterwards. Nowadays, people change job frequently and need to be able to adapt to change.

I would think that the universities in France also feel the need to adapt to change, and that more autonomy will be a crucial prerequisite for this. I respect the engagement of students and their concerns about the future of French higher education, but student unions might also think a bit more about adapting to the new circumstances themselves and embrace change when change is necessary.

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:

“Each university’s governing body will shrink from 60 to 20-30. University presidents will be allowed to spend their budgets as they wish, including in higher pay to recruit or retain star professors. They will be able to offer jobs more quickly: the creaking central calendar now means it can take over a year to finalise an offer, by which time good candidates have gone abroad. Universities will be permitted to raise private money; students to enrol anywhere. For the first time, universities will own and manage their own property. In exchange universities will share an extra €5 billion over the five years to 2012.”

Indeed, revolutionary changes for the French universities. Yet, the Economist would have preferred to see more radical changes. They point to two critical elements that are missing in the plans:

First, tuition fees. This of course is a sensitive issue in France (and some other European countries) where higher education is seen as a right, not a privilege. According to the students, “the university is a public service so the state must pay.” Alas, no plans for fees. Given the strains on France’s public finances, and ambitious plans for better campus facilities, this looks unsustainable in the long run.

The second gap is selection. An early version of Pécresse’s law – which allowed universities to select students at entry for masters’ degrees – was considered so controversial that it was quietly dropped. The more pressing issue of student selection at undergraduate entry was never even put on the table. As the Economist describes it, the system relies mainly on selection through failure:

“Anybody who passes the school-leaving baccalauréat exam can enroll at university. Yet roughly half of those who do drop out later. Unsurprisingly, lecturers are half-hearted about teaching in overcrowded amphitheaters filled with half-motivated psychology and sociology students. It is a vast waste of time and resources.”

Clearly, university reform in France is a delicate issue. If you go one step to far, the whole student community assembles and before you know it, old times are back again. It’s about time that the French students acknowledge that they are the ones loosing out if reforms are not taken soon. Luckily there are some that are able to see this. Let’s hope others follow.