Editorial – Rhythm

Why do higher education reforms take so long to materialize? Will we have to wait another ten, fifteen or twenty years for transformative projects to see the light of day?

The sector has been waiting almost ten years for a new law to replace 01-00, dating from 2000. Over the past decade, three ministers have succeeded one another, and none has been able or had the time to see the project through to completion. “The piece of legislation is being finalized”, “it is being reviewed by the SGG (Secretariat General of the Government)”, “it will be in the adoption circuit in a few weeks”… And in the end, nothing. The sector continues to operate with a twenty-five-year-old law, out of step with its new realities.

The same goes for the university map, which provides for an “enlightened” distribution of  institutions and universities according to the needs of each region. No trace of this document for 10 years. It’s also been a decade since the announcement of a global information system providing real-time feedback from all universities. And we’re still waiting…

Some projects have remained in the drawer for a long time before being deployed. Such was the case with the ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System). Included in the BMD (Bachelor’s, Master’s, Doctorate)  system as early as 2003, it was not actually launched until 2023. For their part, teaching researchers have had to wait more than 25 years for their status to change. 

Other projects are still pending, despite their urgency, such as the reinforcement of universities’ financial autonomy, enabling them to escape the hell of a priori control and accelerate their research projects.

Time does not seem to be an important factor in this highly strategic portfolio, and the pace of change in the sector is far too slow to allow for any significant transformation. Why such a wait-and-see attitude?