Vincent Ledoux, Député du Nord

Welcoming international students to France: proposals from Vincent Ledoux, a deputy from the Nord department

Welcoming foreign students to France is an increasingly important issue for the attractiveness of French higher education. Vincent Ledoux, deputy from the Nord department and special rapporteur for the government’s external action budget, offered new ideas to strengthen this attractiveness. 

In an article published in French magazine “Le Point” on June 2nd, Vincent Ledoux, “député” (equivalent to MP) for the “département du Nord”, underlines the significance of the economic and cultural stakes involved in France’s academic attractiveness. The deputy developed the same arguments to improve this attractiveness before the French Commission for the Evaluation of Public Policies at the National Assembly, where the deputy spoke as Special Rapporteur for the French government’s External Action budget to present his report on “The contribution of the Quai d’Orsay to the policy of attracting foreign students to France”.

 

Tougher international context


Vincent Ledoux started with the observation that international students’ mobility has become “a field of competition between governments, which have identified it as an asset for their universities and their economies, but also as a means of exchanging values and create lasting relationships between societies”. 

But the latest available figures (before the pandemic) are not so optimistic for France. For the year 2019-2020, out of 370,000 foreign students in France 290,000 were on international mobility. However, the rapporteur points out, “over the course of 10 years, mobilities increased by 68% worldwide, but by only 32% in France”. Ledoux said that “France has been the third most popular host country behind the United States and the United Kingdom for a long time, but the country has fallen to sixth place, behind Australia, Germany and Russia, just before Canada”.

 

Several tools to face the challenge

For the deputy from the Nord, “our international attractiveness depends of course primarily on our universities and our grandes écoles, but also on the government’s external action” through several tools, including:

  • the cooperation services of the embassies “with now only 90 university cooperants and 259 Campus France Offices in 127 countries” for which Ledoux “recommends that the government stabilises the number of cooperants” and “ensures that profiles match the operational stakes”;
  • the “Études en France platform” “which facilitates registrations”, and for which Ledoux “suggests pooling part of the revenue in relation with its use, which has grown from 11 to 20 million euros over 3 years, and which will continue to grow”;
  • the public industrial and commercial institution 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 programmes”;
  • the funding of scholarship grants. The deputy detailed that “funding is divided between the 30 million euros in scholarships granted by diplomatic posts and the 25 million in scholarships for central thematic programmes such as the Eiffel and Make Our Planet Great Again programmes. Total cost is therefore around 55 million euros since 2017.

 

New approaches to granting scholarships

But, says Ledoux on this matter, “the stagnation of credits for scholarship grants in recent years has ambiguous effects, because there has undeniably been a qualitative effort to avoid scattering and to target training of excellence”. However, he continued, “it cannot be denied that there is also a quantitative issue, because scholarships are a product of appeal and they retain the best candidates who are, moreover, strongly solicited by our competitors”. The deputy thus recommends “re-examining the methods of granting scholarships by diplomatic posts”.

In order to assess “the effectiveness of scholarships”, Vincent Ledoux also proposes to create “an indicator to monitor the success rate of foreign students with scholarships compared to other mobile students”. For the deputy, this requires “renovating Campus France’s strategy towards former foreign students, with a follow-up of their career paths and a real role for diplomatic posts in the France Alumni platform”.

 

Clearer strategic objectives

To better identify strategic objectives, Ledoux reviewed the “Bienvenue en France” plan, presented in autumn 2018, which should supposedly “attract 500,000 foreign students in 2027” and “is undoubtedly out of reach”. But according to Ledoux, “the plan has made it possible to begin to improve the material quality of the reception in the universities, with a certification from Campus France, and to simplify the procedures for visas and residence permits”.

The plan also authorises universities “to set different registration fees for non-European students in order to generate new resources”. According to the deputy, “it is now a question of not losing sight of France’s African priority in terms of student mobility, which has been clearly identified by the French President”.

 

 

Priority on Africa

According to Ledoux, we must indeed “be well aware that the additional flows of foreign students in France will mainly come from Africa, contrary to certain representations that still oppose traditional exchanges with Africa to modern mobilities that would come from other emerging countries that should be encouraged, such as India or the Asia-Pacific”.

It is therefore necessary to assume, the deputy continues, “that Africa will provide, in the coming years, the vast majority of foreign students in mobility in France. These mobilities will have to be managed in cooperation with the countries of origin, so that there is coherence between their needs and the study paths in France. In short, he concludes, “France’s academic attractiveness is a global issue, but the relationship with Africa, which is itself fully part of globalisation, is a revealing factor and can be a catalyst”.

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Published on: 09/06/2021 à 15:36
Updated : 09/06/2021 à 15:37
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