Copie Blanche

Why no photo?  Why the white space above????

Q. Why is the title in French?

A. Because in English it doesn’t exist…

OK, I’ll get to the point….

You have no idea (unless you are a prof) quite how much pain one feels to be invigilating a resit exam (where students are being given a second chance to pass) and to see, in some cases, half of the students not bother to turn up and to discover that, of the half seated before you, 50% have not the slightest intention of writing more than their name on the attendance sheet and exam paper (so as not to be disqualified from receiving the grant award, I presume).  After such a supreme effort some lay their head on their arms and go to sleep and others stare the invigilators defiantly in the eye with a ‘You can’t make me do it if I don’t want to’, sort of supercillious smirk on their lips.  A calculated insult, yes, but also a total negation of the fundamental reason for being at university: the desire to learn and develop the self to increase the chance of a successful future life and career.

I would have thought that simply  to avoid the boredom of being corralled with no possibility of ‘escape’ for at least an hour, these refusniks would have at least read the exam paper and tried to write something just to pass the time…. but no….  la copie blanche s’oblige il me semble..

It is not just a rejection of the resit opportunity, it is far, far more than that, it’s a rejection of:

1. opportunity to fit oneself for life not just work, perhaps increasing the possibility of a reasonably paid job, security, independence and the hope of seeming an attractive proposition for a future partner…
2. parental hard work investment in and aspirations for their offspring
3. the underpinning logic of the state’s funding of virtually free access to higher education to support the learning, development and future hopes and goals of its young citizens and to contribute to the collective wealth of society as a whole.

For those ‘copie blanche’ students it seems to me that it’s a one-headed coin

(or a two-headed or two-tailed one) with the same word on both faces:

MY RIGHTS! (Society owes me the grant)

‘My responsibilities‘ (I owe society for the privilege of being a grant recipient) having been seemingly erased at will from the coin/equation: relegated from all respect or even recognition that there is a quid pro quo operating here between society and the individual whereby the individual receives the right to very generous grant-aided funding from the taxation of the country’s citizens in return for a personal input and learning effort and investment.   Puts me in mind of a Mannfred Man song ‘Blinded by the Light’, whereas here it seems to have become ‘Blinded by the Right’ for some.

I started feeling insulted by all this (and I guess I still am to some degree if I’m honest with myself), but that has been overtaken by a profound sense of injustice and disillusionment that the system is being wilfully ‘milked’ by some  who care not one jot for the ‘Last Chance Saloon’ opportunity they are personally refusing to seize whereas other needy causes are missing out.

The state has so many calls for funds which are desperately needed by many in our society that it seems such a waste when certain recipients are extensively supported and financed and offered an incredible opportunity which they squander profligately and, it seems to me, wholly deliberately.

Perhaps it is worse than that….

Post-Bac education accessed by means of virtually 100% state funding for tuition fees, accommodation and subsistence  for those who need it is perhaps the first direct and personal experience that young people have of state involvement in their lives. Then comes post-university, the working life and the next encounter with state support which, for those with low level qualifications who have rejected the opportunity afforded by state education grants, is likely to mean unemployment benefit (I don’t actually have to do anything – it’s my right – just like the education grant‘).  The first encounter with ‘rights’ and free (seemingly unconditional – except for attendance) funding then is likely to condition the perception of other rights provided by the state… My fear is that those who attended their university courses merely to access the state grant with no intention of making a personal investment in learning are likely to become those in the queue for the state unemployment benefit, possibly with little intention of working…  Surely we can do better than this?

Thankfully many students (the vast majority I trust) see education and learning as a once in a lifetime opportunity for self-develoment, a secure and  independent future and work as hard as they can to make a return on this public investment in their personal present and future. It is a privilege to see them develop and succeed and prosper… many cite their university studies as being THE lever in reaching their success.  Would that this were the case 100% of the time, but my resit exam observations suggest that it might not be…

In stark contrast to the ‘rule’ (the ‘vast majority’) above, however, are the ‘exceptions’: those who effectively ‘take the money and run’…..  some examples:

• Those that come to class (or an exam, a resit) to sign an attendance sheet and do nothing but disrupt the class because they have no intention of listening, learning or participating.  Worse still is the energy teachers have to put into quelling their antics which takes away from their time with students who are there to learn. It would be simpler all round for the sake of a positive learning and teaching atmosphere to let such individuals sign in and just absent themselves from the class. Either that, or teachers only allow people to sign the attendance paper if they have been demonstrably and evidently there to learn, contribute and participate … but then that is too subjective a measure of course.
• Although I fully support the premis that students possessed of a Bac should be able to go on to university and should be able to access grant assistance to do this if it is needed, it only makes sense if students are received onto courses where their BAC marks suggest they have a genuine interest, aptitude and background.  Presently however, there appears to be no point in interviewing at first year degree entry level as a student could say: ‘I know I only got 2/20 for this subject at the Bac, and I know you feel my background and level are not appropriate, but you can’t stop me from enrolling on your course, now can you?’…  To me this seems to be a wide-open higher education opportunity for students who don’t actually have any intention of studying – a strategy to enrol on courses upon which they have almost certainly zero chance of success anyway. I have seen some startling drop out rates between year to year (startling to me as a former Senior Lecturer and Course Manager in an English University where  serious ‘questions are asked’ even if there are only a handful of students who do not move from first to second year).
• Should a student who returns a copie blanche / copies blanches be permitted to continue grant-aided study – even with a signed attendance sheet?  Surely the copie blanche says to the university and the state that such a student is not interested in  investing himself/herself in learning in any way, even when offered a resit as a second chance. I am given to understand (I trust correctly) that students can have the right to resit a whole year and continue their non-learning activities and copies blanches with grant-aid support.  How is this possible?  I am all for opportunity and, faced with a 50/50 decision have always sided with the student, but when a student effectively says with the ‘copie banche’: ‘I can’t be bothered to write anything – I’m only here to get my signature on the presence sheet so my grant will be paid’, well, there my sympathy ends most definitively. There is an English expression for this: such students are ‘taking us for a ride‘….

So what can/should/might be done about this?

The above is a very personal view from an individual who studied in another country in another époch himself, became a lecturer in that system, then moved to France to continue his teaching career some 15 years ago.  You are entitled to disagree with me…  So my perspective / solutions:

1. Continue to offer grant aid to tuition fees, accommodation and subsistence where there is clearly a need. [I received a partial grant myself in the UK in the late 70s  early 80s and was very grateful as were my parents who were not that well off].  The situation has changed now in the UK and grants have finished – loans are the current alternative…. but fees have changed dramatically: even for the most basic of degree courses in the least renowned universities, the basic annual tuition fee is in the region of 10,000 – 13,000 euros a year.  Then there is accommodation and subsistence on top. Most students (including one of my own daughters) are likely to graduate with a loan to be repaid in mid career of something like 50,000£  / 60,000 Euros.  With that pressure, the ‘copie blanche’ is, frankly unheard of – I never saw one in 19 years of teaching over there.  I am NOT saying that such a scheme should be adopted here in France, but I am suggesting that grant-recipients need to be made to understand the privilege they are being offered and that ‘levers’ perhaps need to be applied to achieve this.  Signatures on an attendance sheet and willingness to copies blanches are NOT effective levers to stimulate, as you would say here ‘IMPLICATION’.
2. Permit degree entry-level selection, so that students who have shown no aptitude for a given subject and no appropriate level of performance at Bac level, cannot insist on automatic entry.  For example, if one were to take the study of a language at degree level, there is an expectation that enrolling students would have some reasonable background in the language (perhaps suggested by more than 10 or 12+/20 at Bac level).  Degrees are for further, higher levels of study and not for ab-initio basics surely?  If students’ marks profiles show that at school level, after any number of years of study, they are incapable of achieving a reasonable or basic pass, how is it that a university has little or no choice of rejecting them?
3. Perhaps set a target performance level under which further grants will not be paid or must be repaid.  Repeated unauthorised/unjustified absence, failure even to try to engage positively in classroom learning activities, marks below a threshold (perhaps 4/20?), and the submission of ‘copies blanches’ at exams or resits should become causes for re-examination of the continued right to grant-aided funding.
4. Free up the working students from the pressure of compensating for non-perfoming colleagues. Other students who are trying hard to learn (with or without grant-aid) are well aware of others who are, as they say, ‘only there for the grant and with no intention to learn‘ and, in my opinion, they resent such students’ lack of involvement, participation and willingness to learn; especially in terms of group / team work where they have two choices (when teamed with an individual who has no intention of participating):
   • work extra and ‘carry’ the non-performer in order to ensure a good personal mark (even if the non-performer gets a mark he / she doesn’t deserve)
   • work to the normal level, knowing this will result in a lower mark as the non-performer will contribute little of any value to the group/team.

Conclusion

Some things needs to (must?) change. In my opinion:-

• The ‘holy cow’ that any student with an overall Bac pass can study any degree level subject at University without the institution being able to take aptitude and prior performance into account seems inefficient to me – in terms of both grant-aid expenditure and sensible learning and teaching.  How is it that some courses (Medicine … Engineering) can select, whereas most basic degree courses cannot?  Where’s the problem?  There is so much ‘waste’ here investing in certain people who have no intention of responding positively to the opportunity they have been given at low/no cost.  There is a ‘Catch 22’ though – if universities rejected ‘poor’ applications, their success rate would be higher and drop-out rate lower…. but their initial admissions could be well down…. which would pose problems (lack of numbers to teach => fewer groups => ‘overstaffing’).  The solution could improve quality within the system (lower numbers of output of higher quality)  but might require fewer teachers.  Some would say ‘élitism’, but it isn’t really that, is it? – It is just a question of finding people able and willing to work to achieve the level that we know is required in the professional world.  In one sense for the state (tho’ no-one dares day it: heresy), it could reduce student grant aid costs (students would be up in arms) and reduce staffing costs (teaching staff and unions would be up in arms) and produce a potentially better quality of graduate output (even if with reduced quantity).  That would seem to be a win-win situation from the government point of view…. [Before you think ‘easy for you to say‘ – I have spent 15 years as a vacataire or contractuel – I would be one of the first against the proverbial wall were staff with tenure to find themselves ‘under hours’].  The savings to the system might usefully be ploughed into helping increase the numbers of mature students in the system (perhaps those who have belatedly realised that they did not seize the opportunity for learning when younger and would like to do so somewhat later).

• The rights to  grant-aided tuition, accommodation and subsistence fees needs to be balanced with the responsibility of the recipient to get involved in the activity of learning and self-development.  There needs to be a lever.  If the grant-aided student shows him/herself unwilling to attend, learn and perform, the system needs to bring some pressure to bear.  For me (as I said – a personal view) if a student supplies  a copie blanche at any point, that should be an automatic termination of grant support as it indicates zero intention to learn..

I realise that this might not be that popular a view with certain students, with certain teachers and maybe even with those in power in our institutions and ministies…. but I am as entitle to an opinion as you.

Let me say again, this is a very personal experience and perspective and that I was not brought up in the French academic system.  I therfore have all the advantages of an extenal view… and all the disadvantages thereof as well.

I’ll leave it with you as a thinking / talking point.

T 11.07.19