Smueller -
>> My lack of "first-hand knowledge of the French education system" does not prevent me from obtaining simple facts <<

Well, so it seems, unfortunately. And please, be serious, don't blow smoke like with your tornado example.


My sentence with "entice" is indeed absolutely weird. Please read it as "a Baccalauréat entitles the bearer the right to register at University".

Your Wikipedia entry is either wrong or badly written. You might want to read this article of the French Education Code, on Legifrance, the French official law website :

http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/WAspad...amp;art=L612-3


It is in French, but I will translate the first two sentences :


<i>Le premier cycle est ouvert &agrave; tous les titulaires du baccalaur&eacute;at et &agrave; ceux qui ont obtenu l'&eacute;quivalence ou la dispense de ce grade en justifiant d'une qualification ou d'une exp&eacute;rience jug&eacute;es suffisantes conform&eacute;ment &agrave; l'article L. 613-5.
Tout candidat est libre de s'inscrire dans l'&eacute;tablissement de son choix</i>

<b>The &quot;first cycle&quot; </b>(this means, in the French university system, the first three years of undergraduate studies, which are sanctioned by the Licence diploma)<b> is open to all bearers of the Bacclaur&eacute;at and to those gained an equivalence or a waiver of said Baccalaur&eacute;at by proving either experience or qualification deemed sufficient as to the standards of Article L.613-5.

All candidates are free to register in their University of choice</b>.

I would gladly elaborate on the French education system, its achievements and its flaws, but I sense that your mind is already done and that you have deemed it inferior by all means to the American system.

See, I'm not here to win pissing contests. So, I'm not sure as to the worthiness of my writing a full-length post about this.

By the way, it's superheterodyne - double frequency shift.

<b>...and to those who gained</b>

<b>... deemed sufficient by the standards of ...</b>

&quot;I can put up with rubbish beer for a bit if I know it's not going to be forever&quot;

audere, if you do ever visit the US, I should warn you that your prejudices may be the only casualties. As Robespierre points out, America is awash with very good &quot;artisan&quot; or &quot;craft&quot; beers (yes, I know the adjectives are a bit pretentious, but the brews aren't). And the price is right, too - typically US$6-7 per sixpack for the good stuff (which gives you some idea of the price of Bud).

If you wnat to stir the Yanks do so by all means, but it would be best to strike where they're vulnerable (you could start with American TV).

superheterodyne - Not all pissing contests are a waste of time. At least we all get the opportunity to empty our bladders.

OK. The tornado example was not my best analogy (I was in a hurry). Here is an attempt more worthy of this discussion - I went to a US high school, and a US university both as an undergraduate student and a graduate student. This not, however, qualify me as having comprehensive first-hand knowledge of secondary and tertiary education in the US. In fact, if I were to judge solely on the basis of my own experience, I would conclude that a university education in the US is free, since I received three university degrees on scholarships and fellowships. First-hand experience is sometimes misleading and certainly not a universal prerequisite to knowledge.

More to the point. There are several reasons I am sceptical of your claims (and, of course, my scepticism does not mean that you are wrong). First, I have read articles that imply that university education in France and Germany is rationed. Second, simple supply-and-demand economics suggest that a free university education would lead to excessive demand that could not be satisfied (imagine what would happen if the government offered free houses to everyone). And, third, a free university education that is available to all (or even 85%) appears inconsistent with statistics that indicate that the number of French adults with a university education is relatively low.

&quot;that [hate groups] unfortunately is the donwside of freedom! The alternative is censorship.&quot;

wren - That sounds like it should be right however the &quot;yelling 'fire' in the movie theater&quot; exception is famous.
Canada (as do many countries of the world) add a &quot;not withstanding clause&quot; to their freedom of speech legislation.
In our law we feel that a higher priority should be given to the freedom of another person to be free of hatred expressed against them because of color, race, religion or ethnic origin, than the freedom of another person to express hatred.
I, for one, am glad that common sense trumps freedom in some cases. (Right to bear arms is another obvious example).

The alternative is not censorship... it is responsibility.

(I am resisting the temptation to quote Kris Kristofferson).

smueller, I may have an explanation to your conviction that Americans are better educated.

I hope that things have changed since I went to USC (on a full scholarship), but I was really horrified (in retrospect) by my four years there. It was undoubtedly my fault for majoring in political science, but basically it was a total waste of time, like doing high school all over again, except without parents on your back. I do not feel that I learned <b>anything</b> during those four years except on the subject of sex, alcohol and drugs, which were not on the official curriculum.

Considering that 'university education' for many Americans consists of two years of junior college, I'm sure that it is wonderful for padding the education statistics, but I am led to wonder if the two types of education (French vs. American) can even be compared.

kerouac, I also had a mostly useless 4-year education at USC (except for a few exceptional classes), but my European friends don't seem to have learned any more at university. I think Beer 101 is a fairly universal course. :-)

I have been reading this (long) discussion with interest. However I was quite surprised by smueller's statistics re. tertiary education attainment, so I had a look on the OECD website (the original source of the quoted data was the OECD).

The percentages given actually refer to the total population aged 25-64, and these figures don't really reflect the *current* situation. Although many older French people didn't have access to higher education when they were young, many more do today.

So, in fact, when you compare the figures for tertiary education attainment among 25-34 year olds, you'll see that the figure for France is <b>38%</b>, and for the US it's <b>39%</b>. Not such a big difference after all!!

I don't know how to link to the data as it's in an Excel table to be downloaded from the OECD website (www.oecd.org).

Here is a link to another OECD study: Economic survey of France 2007: Enhancing incentives to improve performance in the education system.

This clearly supports Kerouac and superheterodyne. &lt;&lt;Passing the baccalaur&eacute;at – the end of secondary school examination entitles students to enrol in the university course of their choice (though entry is automatic only for universities within the student’s acad&eacute;mie of residence). The fact that there is no selection on admission (except in certain special cases) while education is essentially free....&gt;&gt;

http://tinyurl.com/297gfl

From my POV, I would accept a 2007 OECD study over a wikopedia reference.

Is there any reason to keep flogging a dead horse?

To the poster who asked where I live, schuler is right, Switzerland. But I grew up in Salem, MA and...

&quot;I was always so naive and thought that Salem witch burnings took place in Massachusetts&quot;

No witches were burned, they were all hung with the exception of the one man, Giles Corey who was pressed to death by piling rocks onto a door. Believe me, I know this - it is ALL we ever studied in grammar school for history class.

I can't imagine.

&gt;&gt;&quot;I have heard of no incidents of racial, religious or sexual-orientation problems in the 10 years that I have been here, and our local grapevine is very active.&quot;

There are 44 identified &quot;hate Groups&quot; operating in GA...from Black speparatist, to KKK, and Chritain identity , Neo-Nazi, white supremacist, Neo-nationalist, skinheads, and the list goes on.&lt;

That is irrelevant and immaterial, snook. They aren't active in my part of the State.

You can find hate groups in Europe, too.

Rob writes:
&gt;In our law we feel that a higher priority should be given to the freedom of another person to be free of hatred expressed against them because of color, race, religion or ethnic origin, than the freedom of another person to express hatred.&lt;

Although there are many people in the uS who agree with you, our legal opinions are quite different.

As it was explained to me by an attorney who specializes in Constitutional Law, &quot;You don't have to listen to me, but you can't force me not to speak&quot;.

That is why we have Nazis marching in Jewish neighborhoods, the KKK marching in Black neighborhoods, and Right-to-Lifers demonstrating at abortion clinics.

I, for one, am willing to accept the unpleasant people being able to say unpleasant things so that I can't be stopped from saying what others might consider to be unpleasant.

&gt;I hope that things have changed since I went to USC....

Which USC?

((I))

Regarding reasons for emigrating:

Some years ago, a junior colleague of mine at the University of Maryland was offered a position at a University in Australia.

He took the offer to his Dept Chair and then to the Dean. The both said that they wouldn't meet the offer.

So off he went. His starting salary was 50% higher than what he was being paid in the US.

In one year he was a tenured Assoc. Prof (or equivalent) and in 3 years he was a Prof.

Just to rub it in, he would send back pix of his office, the campus, the view of the ocean, his home, etc.

A much better life than if he had stayed.

((I))

Firstly I have tried a variety of yankee beers and they're all rank. The mass produced stuff is awful, and the microbreweries tend to over malt their brews - so I don't like 'em. But anyway....

People have stated that the USA would be number X on their list but no one has written a list of where they would want to live permamnently, so here's my top ten (and rememebr this is a permanent move):

Australia
New Zealand
Bermuda
Barbados
Most of the small west indies - anywhere except Jamaica really
France
Spain
Holland
Sweden
Canada

Interesting point, audere. Mine :-

1) Italy
2) France

Er... that's it. I'd like a couple of years in most of the West Indies but not as a permanent move.

Smueller: The German system demands the equivalent of the Abitur to enter university. With limited exceptions, everybody with Abitur can enter any course in any university in Germany. Payment exists by now in some states but is rather small.
Why do fewer people go to university under these circumstances than in the USA? Until now (the system is currently changing), German universities mainly offered complete courses, i.e. minimum 5-6 years of education. To get the Abitur, one needed to spend 13 years in school, normally finishing at 18-19. Thus a student would typically finish university at 25 or so (depending on whether having spent a year in the army etc.).
An alternative is to leave school at 16 and enter a vocational training, for example as lab technician or a nurse, which would be college education in the US. In that case, people earn their first money with 16 and enter the proper workforce at 18-20 after finishing their training.
Not going to university limits the career options but from a purely financial point of view, it can be the better option. An example is the chemical industry where the chemists all study for a PhD and enter work around 30. Someone who did his vocational training in a big German chemistry company and then advanced through further training to become a master of his trade, would earn more money in his life-time than most of the university educated chemists. Additionally, people from less academic oriented families would be somewhat afraid of risking university and rather go for a vocational training. (The failure rate at German universities is high. It’s a consequence of some university courses being swamped because of no entry limitation and thus eager to weed out many of the beginners. At least in my time, a failure rate of at least 50% in science and engineering was common.)
Germany recently introduced the possibility to gain a degree after 2 years of studying. I’m pretty sure that this will boost the numbers of university graduates but I’m equally sure that people with a vocational training will have better career chances than someone who just did the two year course. But a combination of both might be a good idea.

As for the question of moving to the US for a year or two: sure, I can imagine it if the opportunity presents itself. I’m working in IT for a German company with a large US presence, so there’s a good chance that it’ll happen. But I doubt that I’d be interested to stay longer. Actually pretty much the same as with other Western countries. My main reason would be to experience a different culture without it being so different that life gets really complicated.

audere_est_facere -
Have you been to any of the places on your top 10 list? I know that visitng a place is very different than living there.

ira - we are talking &quot;spreading hatred&quot; not &quot;saying unpleasant things&quot;
and we are talking about spreading hatred based on &quot;color, race, religion or ethnic origin&quot;
You can still say your other unpleasant things if you want &lt;wink&gt;

audere_est_facere -
Have you been to any of the places on your top 10 list? I know that visitng a place is very different than living there.&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

All of them apart from the antipodes. All have drawbacks, all have plus points. I think I'd be happier in any of them than I would in the USA.

Hans

Thank you for your thorough explanation. It accords with what my German au pairs have tried to explain to me. Now I feel like a light bulb (apologies to Ira) has turned on.

In Australia, (more specifically NSW) the weeding out happens in yrs 11 and 12 where the focus is writing an external examination where the universities employ their own highly opaque UAI (University Admission Index). Right now, to enter Journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney a student needs a UAI of 97.5, which simplistically means they have to perform better than 97.5% of all the students doing their HSC. Law and medical degrees can require UAIs of over 99%.