Vincent Ledoux: “We must take on a large part of Africa! “

The mobility of international students is a field of competition between States, which have clearly identified it as an asset for their universities and their economies, but also as a means of conveying values ​​and forging lasting links between societies. In the short term, it is also a direct return of 2 billion euros for France in student spending, spread over the entire territory, which our regions may not yet have sufficiently realized … For the year 2019-2020, out of the 370,000 foreign students in France, 290,000 were “in international mobility”, according to the definition of Unesco, because they temporarily left their national territory for the purposes of studies. In 10 years, this mobility has increased by 68% worldwide, but only 32% in France.

France: a rank to be reclaimed with the cooperation services of the embassies With Campus France with the funding of scholarships

For a long time third host country behind the United States and the United Kingdom, France moved to sixth place, behind Australia, Germany and Russia, and followed by Canada. With 25,000 doctoral students in mobility, France is still 3^e in the latest OECD ranking, but it is the only one of the top 10 countries to see its number of foreign doctoral students decline between 2013 and 2018, with 9% less, while Germany increased them by 57%. Our international attractiveness depends of course in the first place on our universities and our grandes écoles, but also on the State’s external action through three tools!

In the first place, the cooperation services of the embassies with now only 90 staff of university cooperants and above all 259 “Campus France spaces”, in 127 countries, components of the embassies responsible for orienting foreign candidates and giving the educational green light before the application for student visas. They employ nearly 500 locally recruited staff. I recommend that the State stabilize the number of cooperants and, in high-load positions that can experience delicate situations, to ensure the adequacy between profiles and operational issues. Junior profiles of international volunteers in administration cannot replace more expensive but seasoned expatriates everywhere … We must also complete the deployment of the Studies platform in France, which facilitates registrations, and I suggest pooling part of the revenue related to its use, which has gone, in 3 years, from 11 to 20 million euros, and which will continue to grow.

The second player in this policy of attractiveness is the public industrial and commercial establishment Campus France, which is the result of a successful merger between three pre-existing structures. Campus France is competent both to promote French higher education abroad and to manage mobility and scholarship programs. These are Quai d’Orsay programs but also foreign partners who finance mobility in France with around 120 million euros in annual management between 2017 and 2019, reduced to 100 million euros in 2020, the health crisis having reduced trade.

The third lever is directly linked to the activity of Campus France. It is the funding of scholarships. This is divided between the 30 million euros in scholarships awarded by diplomatic posts, and the 25 million euros in scholarships on central thematic programs such as the Eiffel or Make Our Planet Great Again programs. The expense has therefore been around 55 million euros since 2017. The Quai d’Orsay thus finances around 11,000 scholarships per year, compared to 14,500 in 2013. Excluding internship grants, this represents 9,000 study grants, of which only 6,500 include a living allowance, since there are also 2,500 “social security grants” which supplement grants paid by foreign states or private companies. .

I would add that, on these scholarships with living allowance, there are only 4,600 scholarships for long study cycles. In contrast, Germany, now France’s main competitor, awarded nearly 17,000 long-term scholarships in 2019 … The stagnation of loans for scholarships in recent years has ambiguous effects, because there has undoubtedly been a qualitative effort to avoid scattering and target training of excellence. However, it cannot be denied that there is also a quantitative stake, because the stock markets are a lead product and they retain the best candidates who are also highly sought after by our competitors

Pose new approaches

I therefore recommend re-examining the methods of awarding scholarships by diplomatic posts, which often tend to prefer short-term scholarships to avoid straining their budgets over several years (what is called “recurrence”). It is also necessary to formally prohibit the posts from redeploying funds from scholarships to other expenses.

In addition, I suggest systematically increasing the unused funds to endow a large central program of scholarships of excellence, more readable, and which Campus France could promote.

In order to assess the effectiveness of scholarships, I suggest including in the performance mechanism of program 185 an indicator for monitoring the success rate of foreign scholarship students compared to other mobile students.
This also requires renovating Campus France’s strategy towards former foreign students, with professional career monitoring and a real leadership role for diplomatic posts in the France Alumni alumni platform.

There is also a need for an operational rapprochement between Campus France and the GIP Erasmus + in charge of the French component of Erasmus programs. A merger of the two structures would, it seems, be difficult, although it is already effective in Germany. In any case, we must better position ourselves to attract European students, especially from Eastern Europe, and not be under-represented in the Erasmus Mundus joint masters which offer scholarships to the best students in the world and are starting to grow. open up to Africa. We must therefore be very clear about our strategic objectives.

The need for clearly identified strategic objectives where Africa has its place

The objective of the “Welcome to France” plan, presented in the fall of 2018, to attract 500,000 foreign students in 2027 is undoubtedly out of reach. But this plan has made it possible to start improving the material quality of reception in universities, with certification from Campus France, and to simplify visa and residence permit procedures, even if in this area we can still do a lot. better.

This plan also authorizes universities to set differentiated tuition fees for non-European students in order to free up new resources, which is a good orientation, which too few universities have taken up at this stage. It is now a question of not losing sight of France’s African priority in terms of student mobility, clearly identified by the President of the Republic and which has two aspects.

Significant public development assistance resources are being mobilized for Franco-African campus projects, with promising initiatives in Dakar and Tunis, for example. This should increase the capacities of African systems and allow French partner universities to develop an educational offer in strategic sectors for emerging economies. This new offer will establish lasting cooperation, but it will only marginally reduce the demand from African students to carry out part of their studies abroad. It is therefore necessary to be well aware that the additional flows of foreign students in France will come mainly from Africa, contrary to certain representations which still oppose “traditional” exchanges with Africa to “modern” mobility which would come from other countries. emerging and should be encouraged, such as India or Asia Pacific. Indeed, the African middle and upper middle classes, in both French-speaking and English-speaking countries, are fully involved in international mobility and tend to represent the strongest contingents, given their demographics.

The new generations of African students are well identified as the levers of growth by our partners and competitors, who, in Africa, are not only British, German or Canadian, but also Turkish, Russian, Saudi or Chinese … We must therefore assume that Africa will provide, in the coming years, the vast majority of foreign students moving to France. These mobilities must be managed in cooperation with the countries of origin, so that there is consistency between their needs and the study paths in France, followed, if necessary, by first professional experiences then valued for the benefit of the country. original.

France’s university attractiveness is a global issue, but the link to Africa, itself fully embedded in globalization, is an indicator and can be the catalyst …