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Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2006

The European dimension in Teacher training in France: squaring the circle?

Résumé

How can European dimension in education be promoted in France? The French teacher training system is original in Europe as students are all postgraduates, and cannot enter a teacher training college (Institut Universitaire de Formation des Maitres – IUFM) unless they have a Bachelor’s degree. Therefore, they are not really students, but trainees (stagiaires), and are being paid while on their probation year, which is also their initial training year. It is assumed Academics have been completed in University before they entered IUFM, so the teacher training colleges have mostly a vocational mission. This teacher training system is known as the “consecutive” system, and is specific to France as well as to Ireland and UK’s PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education), while all the other European countries have a so called “simultaneous” teacher training system (vocational skills and academics are taught in the same institution for 3 to 5 years after the end of secondary school) . Although they are not like the other students, IUFM students are considered by the European Commission (Education and Culture), just as the other students, and therefore are eligible for the Erasmus mobility programme. But in spite of the official development of the European Higher Education Area announced in Sorbonne in May 1998 and officially launched in Bologna in June 1999 (also known as the Bologna Process), very few IUFM students enjoy an Erasmus mobility to study abroad, and on a larger scale, very few have the opportunity to study another educational system than the French one, even for short periods, either abroad or at home. That paradox needs to be explained, and it will be the purpose of this paper to show the reasons why teacher training in France is so self-centred. Focused on primary education and based upon official data, inquiries and interviews, the results shown hereinafter will be followed by proposals to develop a European awareness in teacher training in France.
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Dates et versions

halshs-03151735 , version 1 (25-02-2021)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : halshs-03151735 , version 1

Citer

Dominique Ulma. The European dimension in Teacher training in France: squaring the circle?. Michael Kuhn; Ronald G. Sultana. Homo Sapiens europeus? - Creating the European Learning Citizen, Peter Lang, pp.277-294, 2006, 978-0-8204-7600-1. ⟨halshs-03151735⟩
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