Education and Regional Development: An Overview of a Growing Controversy

Abstract

Congress denounces the dangers and implications of the Bill, and particularly those aspects involving education and the Public Service. It calls upon the Federation de I'Education Nationale to carry out a policy of coordinated action with other public service, unions and civil service organisations, especially those in the Health Service, to defend the rights and guarantees given to their membership [1]. Such was the reaction from the floor of the French teachers' umbrella organisation, the Federation de l'Education Nationale at its Bordeaux conference in May 1979. The object of such tearing of hair was a Bill laid before the National Assembly by the Minister of the Interior. It proposed to decentralise the control of education, increase the powers of the chief administrators in the educational districts (recteurs d'academie), add to those of the National Inspectorate and, last but not least, to set up at departmental level Educational Councils bringing together parents, teachers, administrators and spokesmen of both industrial and cultural interests. If, seen from the teachers' standpoint, this measure represents the dismantling of France's highly centralised education system, from the viewpoint of the Government it is a significant step in extending control over education to the regional or departmental level. Hence the Babylonian chorus and strident cries of protest at Bordeaux. Naturally, the issue of regional control over education is not one to be brushed aside lightly, which means spectators at the educational cockpit can look forward in the near future to a bloody and hopefully enjoyable skirmish. Nevertheless, the question of regional control in this area is only one instance of a much wider phenomenon, namely the problem of regional development. Development is a vague term and covers a multitude of sins. To simplify matters, it is probably true to say it has two major dimensions, the first economic, the second cultural. Although the former is perhaps more important from the technocratic standpoint, it is in the latter area that demands for 'regional recognition' have been expressed most forcefully. This is not to say that both sides of the coin are not complementary, nor that they are incompatible. Far from it. What often starts out as a movement for cultural expression develops later into a programme for separate economic development or into a political platform with radically different priorities from those endorsed by national political parties.