* Originally published as "Un siècle d’éducation," Données sociales, INSEE, 1999 edition.

** Jean-Claude Émin and Paul Esquieu are members of the DPD, Ministry of National Education, Research and Technology.

Our education system has seen profound changes over the last century. Three key periods mark the progress of education: the beginning of the twentieth century, the 1960s and the present.

The beginning of the century was the near-legendary period immediately after Jules Ferry had established the school system built on the foundation laws of 1881 and 1882. The system was a symbol and a spearhead of the Third Republic, serving a nation-state which wanted to do full justice to its role as educator, providing teaching for children of all social classes in a country which was still predominantly and deeply rural. A school system which was non-religious, free and compulsory, in the words of the famous trinity, and which continued right up to the second world war without any major upheaval: compulsory, under the law of 28 March 1882, "for children of both sexes, between the ages of 6 and 13", a leaving age which was not raised to 14 until 1936 ; free, in accordance with the law of 16 June 1881, which provided that "school fees will no longer be charged in state primary schools"; non-religious, in that it was placed under the control of the state, which aimed to ensure its neutrality, and which finally managed to prohibit all forms of education by religious groups under the law of 1904 (which is not to say that private education disappeared – in fact quite the contrary). State primary school teachers (including female teachers, for whom a training college was then created in each département) effectively became civil servants in 1889, when they began to be paid by the state: these were the so-called "hussars of the Republic".

Such was the symbolic heritage of Jules Ferry who, by implementing these broad principles, allowed a general reduction in illiteracy to be achieved in his time: by around 1900, only 5 % of marrying couples or conscripts were completely illiterate, i.e. could not sign their names. But Jules Ferry's school system was divided in three ways. Firstly, there was the co-existence of two different systems: primary schools, which were free, taking the children of ordinary people, and secondary schools, which were largely attended by the bourgeoisie. Secondly, girls were educated separately from boys: each had their own school, as was specified over each school building. Lastly, the school system was separate from industry, with very little vocational training.

Of the six and a half million pupils in France at that time, the vast majority only attended primary school, with secondary schools remaining the preserve of a very small minority (figure 1). This trend lasted for many decades. Working-class children went to school until the age of 13, the age of the school certificate which, at the turn of the century, fewer than a quarter of them obtained, and at that point most of them left (figure 2). The most able could continue their studies in higher primary schools (EPS) for three years in order to obtain a higher diploma, the main effect of which was to enable them to become primary school teachers. But higher primary schools only refined and reinforced the primary system: it was supposed to "resist the attractions of the broader education – symbolised by the teaching of Latin – which is the province of secondary schools". The children of the middle classes therefore followed a different path. Destined for secondary education in middle schools and high schools, they were placed as young as possible in the lowest classes of these institutions (the five years before secondary level) . Educational and social divisions were therefore well established, particularly as the primary classes of secondary institutions had to be paid for, unlike the EPS. Secondary education became completely free only in 1933. The financial barrier therefore took the place of a selection process. The separation of school populations was reflected in a similar divide in the teaching profession.

Finally, Ferry's primary school system was that of rural France, where agricultural values were strongly emphasised. Vocational training was almost non-existent outside trade and industry practical schools (EPCI), which were the responsibility of the Ministry of Trade until 1920, when they came under the umbrella of the state education system, before turning into technical middle schools and then technical high schools as they are today. There was no movement at all until the Astier Law of 1919 which introduced vocational schools (the ancestors of our apprenticeship centres) which were free and compulsory for young men and women of 14-18 years of age who were already working in industry. This law also created the vocational training diploma (CAP). As for the "special" secondary education, which was more practical, introduced in 1865 by Duruy and rechristened "modern" in 1892, it became more like classical secondary education in 1902, leading to a baccalauréat of a different kind, without Latin, but accorded the same value. In the words of Goblet, this diploma remained the barrier, passed only by 3% of a generation in the period before the second world war (figure 3).

Changes in numerical terms were modest up to 1950: by that time there had been no increase in the school population, which consisted of approximately six and a half million young people, of whom just over a million were in secondary education (many children left school at 14, at the end of compulsory education) and only just 200,000 in higher education. Despite the fact that the Minister for Public Instruction had become the Minister of National Education in 1932, he still only had access to 7% of the national budget, as in 1900, whereas Jules Ferry had envisaged that his share would rise to one sixth (figure 1).

In terms of reforms, or at least planned reforms, however, there had been many developments which tended towards a comprehensive school system, breaking away from the old, and unfair, order. They were the inspiration for Minister Jean Zay's measures in 1937, before gaining a new lease of life following the war. As early as 1946 in a plan which did not see the light of day, at least in the short term, Langevin and Wallon, like Condorcet a century and a half earlier, referred to the principle of justice, which ought to lead to "effective equality, to social equality, corresponding to ability and merit". Democratisation seemed all the more necessary as the country's economic recovery at that time required the "drawing of new intellectual strength from every stratum of the nation".

Real change only came with the Fifth Republic and the Berthoin reform of 1959, which extended compulsory schooling to the age of 16 and established the foundations of the current primary-middle (lower secondary)-high (upper secondary) school structure. The task of middle schools was to ensure that everyone had access to secondary education, and the former apprenticeship centres became technical middle schools (CET). The Fouchet reform of 1963 continued the trend by establishing general middle schools (the former "supplementary" primary schools) and secondary middle schools. The secondary system then experienced, in the words of Louis Cros, a veritable education explosion. Within the space of a few years, the proportion of pupils entering the first year grew from 50% to 95%. Moreover pre-school education developed rapidly: it became universal at 5 years in 1970, and at 3 years in 1990. The total number of pupils and students passed the ten-million mark in 1960, and grew close to thirteen million in 1970. In the same year, the share of the national budget devoted to education actually did reach one-sixth.

The school system changed and adapted against a very specific background, the "thirty glorious years", when intense economic development encouraged investment in education and a rise in the level of qualifications. Planning policy mapped out priorities and specific objectives, including in the field of education. Within the framework of the fifth plan (1965-1970), and in order to establish options available at secondary level, precise forecasts were made of the destinations of pupils reaching the end of middle school: 8% would undertake special education, 17% would start work, 40% would go on to a short second cycle and 35% to a long second cycle. The dream of appropriate options for everyone reached its peak as the state became more involved than ever before in vocational training: after the CET, technical high schools and university institutes of technology (IUT) were established and new qualifications (vocational training diplomas (BEP), and technical bacs) introduced. The culmination of these two strands of development, democratic and economic, was the establishment of the comprehensive middle school system in 1975 with the Haby reform.

These reforms set in motion wide-reaching changes which could not be reversed, but practical reality thwarted original intentions on more than one occasion. The "leaving option" (classes for school leavers followed by pre-vocational classes at the same level) continued for much longer than planned, and the three years of study required for the CAP caused a large number of pupils to leave middle school at the end of their second year until the middle of the 1980s. The aim of taking the whole of a year group to the end of the first cycle remains a considerable challenge and a problematic experience for comprehensive middle schools, who have to deal with the continuing diversity of their pupils.

The needs of the economy, technological change, new professions and the rise in unemployment called for further progress in raising and adapting levels of training. These factors were reflected in the 1985 aim of enabling 80% of a year group to achieve the baccalauréat, a target confirmed by the Orientation Law of July 1989. A new barrier was about to be overcome: entry into the second cycles of secondary education. And so the growing influx into the general and technological high schools, where the rate of entry into the second cycle of a generation (young people born in the same year) increased from 40 to 57% between 1985 and 1991, and the continuation of studies after the BEP for the new vocational baccalauréats, led to a sharp rise in the proportion of young people taking the different types of baccalauréat, from 39% in 1986 to 70% in 1994. The proportion who passed reached 63% in the 1995 session, compared to only 24% twenty years earlier (figure 3). Altogether, between 1985 and 1995, the number of successful candidates increased by 90%, rising from 253,000 to 480,000.

It was naturally foreseen that this would lead to a significant expansion in higher education, and so coordinated schemes were implemented to develop the first cycle of university studies, followed later by the "University 2000 plan". The number of students did indeed rise from 1,385,000 in 1985 to 2,139,000 in 1995. This increase of almost 60% over 10 years varied by sector: + 51% for universities, + 60% and + 66% for preparatory classes for the grandes écoles (prestigious schools of university level) (CPGE) and for the IUTs, and the highest rate of 91% for "higher technical sections" (STS) (see Box 1).

Increased access to successive levels of education led to a continuing increase in the length of studies (figure 2). Including every type of basic education (state education, agricultural, health sector, apprenticeship, etc.) a child beginning nursery school today can expect to go to school for 19 years on average, with a trend to increase by 0.2 years from one school year to the next. In this respect France is one of the developing countries with the longest periods of schooling. Longer school attendance is particularly marked among young people of 19 years of age, of whom more than 70% now continue their studies, as against only 30% at the beginning of the 1980s. The distribution of those leaving basic education by level of qualification is continually rising: in 1995, almost 39% of young people who left education had a higher education diploma, compared to fewer than 30% in 1990 and not quite 15% in 1980.

After a decade of intense development, when the increased access of successive generations to higher levels of education (especially in the general sector) was matched by a reduction in repeated year rates and a rise in examination success rates, recent school years have shown a noticeable change in the trend, a sort of breathing space following on from the progress which has been achieved. The proportion of a generation which reached at least the level of the CAP or the BEP (Level V) in 1996-97 was over 92%, close to the target of 100% set by the Orientation Law of 10 July 1989, but it was already at that level at the beginning of the decade. The proportion of a generation reaching the level of the baccalauréat has tended to stabilise at around 68% for the last three years. Further downstream, at university, a student's chances of reaching the second cycle (a full degree) are no longer rising, having been flat at 60% since the middle of the 1980s.

Since the school year which began in 1991, the number of pupils attending general and technical high schools has fallen overall. It is true that these institutions take in fewer generations, but they are also reporting a fall in the numbers of pupils passing from the fourth to the fifth year, which is a reversal of previous advances. At the same time, the vocational sectors, especially agricultural training and apprenticeship from 1993, are showing a marked rebound. These changes in the distribution of pupils in secondary education are now reaching higher education. Having now also been affected by falling demographic trends, the total number of students actually registered a historic fall in 1996. This phenomenon has gone hand in hand with a degree of instability in the behaviour and strategies of new students. The marked enthusiasm for the selective sectors (STS, IUT and CPGE) slowed down at the beginning of the 1980s. Long university studies found a new clientele, attracted by the opening of university institutes of teacher training (IUFM) which prepare students for a teaching career now attracting more interest again. But this trend came to a sudden end in 1996, marked by a significant reduction in the number of students with a general baccalauréat, the main candidates for university courses, while especially large numbers of those with a technical baccalauréat entered the STS (47%) and IUT (11%).

France has made considerable efforts to increase the length of schooling and raise the level of basic education. Young people are leaving school with ever higher qualifications. But do they know any more?

According to a comparative study based on tests for the primary-school diploma which were administered for real in 1923, 1924 and 1925, the results of today's pupils were better for writing, and as good for questions on comprehension of a dictated text and arithmetic (except multiplication); on the other hand, they were worse at spelling and grammar and solving the problems set in the 1920s. However, it is difficult to make comparisons over such a long period of time, if only because society's demands in terms of the acquisition of knowledge and skills have evolved over time. For example, it is clear that more importance is attached today to understanding a text and to expression than to observing the formal rules of the written language (spelling).

It is easier to interpret the results of comparisons involving shorter periods. For example, the reasoning, logic and practical intelligence tests which all conscripts must take have been the same for many years. They are used to calculate, for each conscript, what is known as a "gross general level" score (up to a maximum of 110 points). Between 1981 and 1995, the average level for young men rose by almost 18% (figure 4). If data for girls could also be included, the results would probably be even better. The main factor behind this improvement is the increase in the average level of education of the conscripts. In fact, for any given level of schooling, the conscripts' results were, on average, almost constant for the period 1981-1995 – showing a slight increase for the most qualified in higher education and baccalauréat holders, and a slight decrease for those who had left school without obtaining a middle school diploma, CAP or BEP.

Between 1980 and 1993, on entry to middle school, performance improved significantly in mathematics and remained at a comparable level in French: the fall in the number of repeated years at primary level did not therefore have a detrimental effect on the level achieved by pupils. From 1984 to 1995, in the fourth year of the middle school, results improved in mathematics and history/geography, and remained stable in life and earth sciences as well as in modern languages. They seem to have deteriorated in French, but the measurement of this change is uncertain and should be put in perspective. At all events, the results have not been adversely affected by the arrival

of younger pupils in this year (given the decrease in repeated years) nor by larger numbers of them (due to the disappearance of the orientation stage at the end of the second year).

This generally positive trend should not be allowed to hide a worrying problem: while cases of serious failure are in the minority today, they are nevertheless difficult to eliminate. For example, the proportion of pupils beginning the first year who do not have basic skills in either reading or arithmetic has remained at the same level since 1992, the first year an attempt was made to measure it: 5-10% of pupils begin middle school with serious academic problems (figure 5).

Every social group has benefited from longer schooling and an increased level of education. From 1984 to 1996, the likelihood that a young person aged 20 or 21 would enter higher education has slightly more than doubled; it has more than tripled for the children of manual workers, whose disadvantage compared to other social groups has fallen (figure 6). Despite this progress, considerable inequality still exists: almost four-fifths of the children of members of the professions, teachers and scientists finish their basic education with a higher education qualification, compared to only a quarter of the children of manual workers and support staff, and access to the most prestigious grandes écoles is relatively restricted for the working class. Within an institution which has become increasingly open to all young people, the different paths still have their hierarchies.

At the same time, disparities between new entrants to middle schools (by socio-occupational category of origin, nationality and delay in starting the first year) have tended to increase since the beginning of the 1980s, while those relating to educational resources have largely stayed the same. The increased social polarisation of middle schools is no doubt largely accounted for by residential segregation, particularly in large conurbations, but is also due to the avoidance of certain schools by those who

are in a position to do so. In this respect, measures taken to make school options more flexible in some areas since 1984 have facilitated avoidance rather than actually causing it.

It is for these reasons that in recent years the Ministry of National Education has adopted a policy of positive discrimination in favour of priority areas, in order to reduce the impact of social inequality on educational achievement. For example, at the start of the school year in 1996, the rate of nursery school attendance by children aged 2 rose to 40% in priority areas, which is 5 points above the national average. The same is true for teaching resources allocated to middle schools: a middle school of average size located in a priority education area, for example enjoys approximately forty more hours of teaching per week than an average middle school (equivalent to 6% of extra teaching resources).

Ensuring that every young person leaving school has a real qualification, in order to prepare them better for starting working life, has now become the main objective of our education system, and there is no doubt that it has taken precedence over that of increasing the proportion who reach the level of the baccalauréat. The Orientation Law of 10 July 1989 had already provided, in Article 3, that every young person would reach at least a level equivalent to the CAP or the BEP. Article 7 provided that education, especially in vocational options, could include periods of training in companies (known as sandwich training). These provisions were picked up and extended by the Five-Year Law of 20 December 1993 concerning work, employment and vocational training, Article 54 of which stated that "every young person, regardless of the level of education which he has reached, will be offered vocational training before leaving the education system". Achieving this objective is not the sole responsibility of the state education system: industry and local authorities also have a role to play. Preparation for working life is not, however, intended to become the sole preoccupation of schools, which should continue to attach value to their role as seats of learning.

In terms of issues, there is no doubt that we have reached the end of a period during which the education system has achieved considerable progress as a result of the priority which it has effectively been granted by the state. Between 1974 and 1996, domestic spending on education rose by 2.8% per year on average, in constant francs, compared to 2.1% growth for national wealth. However, there is still room for improvement, particularly in schools and classrooms which are the places where the act of teaching is carried out. Among the general and technical high schools, for example, there are over twenty points between the baccalauréat pass rates of the most successful and the least successful, according to indicators which have been published for the last five years. In middle schools, it appears that approximately a third of the variation in results of mathematics and French tests taken by pupils in the fourth year is related to the schools and the classes they attend (the remainder of the variation is related to the individual characteristics of the pupils who attend the same school). These gross variations are obviously smaller if the concept of value added is imported, taking into account the socio-demographic characteristics of high school pupils or the results achieved in the first year by middle school pupils. However, they are still large enough to allow hope of significant improvements by bringing the weaker schools closer to the standards of the best. In conclusion, one of the issues faced by the education system today is how to combine increased autonomy for schools with maintaining the common standards and objectives of a national state education service.

Lelièvre, C.: Histoire des Institutions scolaires - 1789-1989, Nathan, 1990.

Nique, C., Lelièvre, C.: La République n’éduquera plus, Plon, 1993.

Dep: L’état de l’école, no. 7, Ministère de l'Éducation nationale, October 1997.

The continuing expansion of the baccalauréat (figure 3) has been accompanied by gradual diversification. The general series were joined by the technological series in 1969 and the vocational series in 1985, with each category leading to a different destination. Holders of the general baccalauréat almost all pursue their studies in higher education, taking especially the longer courses. More and more holders of a technological baccalauréat are also doing so: over 80% at the moment, as against approximately 60% at the beginning of the 1980s, they mainly take short courses (IUT and STS). As for the vocational bac, which was designed essentially for those who would start work immediately, only a quarter who hold it continue their studies. In total, more than 80% of all baccalauréat holders enter higher education at the start of the next academic year.

Preparatory classes and technology institutes, which for a long time grew very slowly or even shrank in size, are now seeing numbers increase: CPGEs and IUTs accounted for 78,000 and 108,000 students respectively at the start of the academic year in 1996, compared to 47,000 and 62,000 in the middle of the 1980s. These options, which are both attractive and selective, and where the number of applications is far higher than the number of places offered, take in a chosen few. Preparatory classes, which are dominated by the scientific series, remain the preserve of the general baccalauréat holders who also form the majority in the IUTs, where the represent almost 70% of entrants. The STSs, which provide short technological courses like the IUTs, also practise selection on entry, but they are open to holders of a technological baccalauréat who wish to move into higher education: almost half of them enter this sector today compared to only 22% in 1980.

Universities, for their part, have a duty to accept without discrimination all the baccalauréat holders who wish to enter or who have not found places at selective institutions. The number of students enrolled here is higher than the number of those for whom it was their first choice, posing a double problem for the universities: quantitative, in terms of student capacity, and qualitative, in terms of management of a relatively diverse group of new students (many of whom, according to their own expressed preferences, wanted to be elsewhere). From the beginning, in the two years leading to the DEUG (diploma of general university studies), students have serious problems, particularly if they come from the technological series, and even more so for the vocational series. The restructuring of the first university cycle which was undertaken ten years ago aimed to reduce the level of failure: six out of ten students now reach the second cycle, in 2, 3 or 4 years, compared to fewer than five out of ten at the end of the 1980s, but two out of three general baccalauréat holders succeed as against less then one in four of the others.

Figure 1 – Some Statistics Illustrating the Growth of the Education System

Coverage : state and private sectors.
Source : Ministry of National Education, Research and Technology, DPD ; older data estimated using INSEE retrospective statistics yearbooks.

Figure 5 – Distribution of Pupils on Entry to First Year by Level ofSkills in Reading and Arithmetic

in %

Note : definition of pupil levels:
- level 1: pupils who do not have basic skills
- level 2: pupils who only have basic skills
- level 3: pupils who also have advanced skills
- level 4: pupils who additionally have outstanding skills
Coverage: all of France.
Read as follows: 8.4% of pupils do not have basic skills in either reading or arithmetic; 4.7% of pupils have all levels of skill in reading and in arithmetic.
Source: Ministry of National Education, Research and Technology, DPD, September 1996.