The thing is I tend to think that the system was quite good historically, as someone who did an engineering degree in France, went to the US as an exchange student and has mostly lived abroad, I found the French elitist system to be quite good. It's allowed plenty of people I know from relatively low income families to graduate with an engineering degree. In my experience in a lot of other countries, money is much bigger limiting factor and I never would have been able to afford the tuition fees for an equivalent school in a lot of countries. In my experience, elitism exists everywhere, at least in France, there are some efforts made for it to be meritocratic.
So, I used to like the fact that tests like the baccalauréat were often with open ended questions that tended to test for the knowledge of how to apply the tools rather than the actual formula. I loved the exam part of the Science de l'Ingenieur I took in high school for example and every time I did a mock exam, I learned new things and had fun. I even liked the type of exams we had in history/geography, essay type exams with open ended questions are great for those kind of subjects.
I like the fact that the baccalauréat is anonymized, that no one correcting it knows who the person taking the exam is (and given the fact that some of my high school teachers didn't like me at all, I'm really glad for that)
What I regret is the fact that there's been a huge push towards directing all students to the baccalauréat général when sometimes a baccalauréat professionel or technologique would be better for some of those students. I regret that the level has gone down in the past 30 years (already when I was in engineering school, my teachers were complaining that we no longer studied vectorial spaces in high school. And, yes besides this, I dislike it when the French National Education decides to do things like teaching how to code without giving the needed resources. I also really dislike politicians who have a very narrow minded knowledge of things make decisions on calculators.
As for the prépa, I decided when I was a student not to tempt my chance so much and went for a school with prépa intégré. Less stressful and less risk. So I can't really comment on them that much.
> I never would have been able to afford the tuition fees for an equivalent school in a lot of countries.
This is indeed one of the great pluses in French (and, broadly, in European) education
The other points you mentioned are indeed great too (the nature of the questions, anonymity, ...) but there are really black parts:
- the high school you go to may or may not have an impact. For the ones who have 18/20 it does not matter that much. But when you are average (say - 14/20) in a school like Hoche in Versailles and 14/20 in a weaker one, then you are in big trouble. A very limited amount of schools will take the name of the high school in consideration and the rest will not. So being average puts you not in an average situation, but in a very bad one.
Looking at the distribution of marks in Hoche, i can assure you that there are the good ones, and then the rest. So why bother going to a "good" school?
The solution: entrance exams to universities.
Why not the high school end exam then? (baccaluréat) - because its have exactly zero value today, you know where you will be before its results are known.
You then have the "elite" universities (Grandes Ecoles), full of themselves and that do not lower themselves to accepting students before their third year after high school. Instead of just having an exam. France wants to be unique here, but we are just dumb by having our students leave abroad.
As you mentioned, we now have "prépas intégrées" (integrated prep schools), which is just just saying "prepas are dumb, but we want to keep the name to be fancy". It is just a 5 years school.
I went though this system, including an engineering degree from one of the Grande Ecoles, and then a doctorate, then teaching in France at a Grande Ecole, and in a University, and also abroad. The politics in our schools are the same as abroad, with the added twist of demi-gods who think that what was put in place in 1732 is the best solution because our world did not change since then.
I love the fact that France provides a good education to people and that (really) everyone can have it. The unfair marking system and ill-placed elitism is what is making our ministers whine, our head of schools whine but nobody has the courage to change anything.
So, I used to like the fact that tests like the baccalauréat were often with open ended questions that tended to test for the knowledge of how to apply the tools rather than the actual formula. I loved the exam part of the Science de l'Ingenieur I took in high school for example and every time I did a mock exam, I learned new things and had fun. I even liked the type of exams we had in history/geography, essay type exams with open ended questions are great for those kind of subjects.
I like the fact that the baccalauréat is anonymized, that no one correcting it knows who the person taking the exam is (and given the fact that some of my high school teachers didn't like me at all, I'm really glad for that)
What I regret is the fact that there's been a huge push towards directing all students to the baccalauréat général when sometimes a baccalauréat professionel or technologique would be better for some of those students. I regret that the level has gone down in the past 30 years (already when I was in engineering school, my teachers were complaining that we no longer studied vectorial spaces in high school. And, yes besides this, I dislike it when the French National Education decides to do things like teaching how to code without giving the needed resources. I also really dislike politicians who have a very narrow minded knowledge of things make decisions on calculators.
As for the prépa, I decided when I was a student not to tempt my chance so much and went for a school with prépa intégré. Less stressful and less risk. So I can't really comment on them that much.