Paul from Paris

French students are traveling in ever greater numbers to pursue their education in Cluj, the historic capital of Transylvania, in Romania.

What attracts them to Romania?

Medical school.

Why?

Medical school in France is especially selective, but in an odd way. Studies begin immediately after secondary school, and are open to basically all high school graduates. But, at the end of the first year, all students sit for a comprehensive examination. Of those who take the exam, 85% fail. After two attempts, candidates are not allowed to re-sit the exam. Historically, France limits medical school graduates to a grand total of 7,500 per year.

Many are called; few are chosen. And now, opportunity knocks.

Romania is now a European Union member state. Degrees granted by its schools and universities are entitled to recognition by French authorities.

French students, either sore from failure after a year’s study or eager to find an alternative that offers odds better than 3 in 20, are prepared to travel and to pay for a medical education elsewhere.

Romanian medical schools, such as the one in Cluj, acted on this demand. They offer classes in Romanian, but also in English, French, and Hungarian (because a significant Hungarian-speaking minority lives in the region) for the first three years of medical school. Starting in the fourth year, knowledge of Romanian is required, because of patient contact. Medical school lasts six years.

For Romanian schools, foreign enrollment generates extra revenues. Tuition fees vary, but are in the neighborhood of €3,000 to €5,000 per year. In addition to French students, Romanian schools are attractive to Swedes and North Africans.

No one claims that the Romanian schools are diploma mills. Foreign students have to pass entrance exams or be accepted on the basis of an application file.

What impact will this have on French medical education? It’s too early to tell.

For many years, French nursing schools had extremely selective end-year examinations, prompting French nursing students to study in neighboring Belgium. Then Belgium adopted class-size limits or quotas, like France. Selective exit exams appeared in Belgium, removing what had made its nursing schools attractive. The status quo ante returned in France.

Romanian has been an EU member only since 2007. The number of French students who completed medical school in Romania with an intent to practice later in France remains small, although it will soon snowball.

I picked up some birthday candles at a Paris supermarket.

My choice was guided  by quality (appearance of the candles, protection against dripping) and price.

I chose the store brand, choice being a relative conept as it was the only brand on offer for simple birthday candles.

I later noticed the back of the box and the use of another brand: Devineau, “candlemaker since 1803″. 1803! More than two centuries of French candlemaking. Devineau is an actual company, independent from the supermarket.

At the bottom of the package, another notice: Made in China.

This mundane product tells (at least) three stories about itself.

I just finished two full days with a stimulating, engaged group of 28 executives (average age 38, with 13 years experience) for a program I put on –in French– about subcontracting, outsourcing, and offshoring. Lots of food for thought.

Following my post yesterday, commenting on the launch of a French web site that purportedly offered to do students' homework, for a fee, the faismesdevoirs.com (translation: do my homework dot com) site posted a retraction of sorts.

The site's creators say that they're closing the site, purportedly following a sudden realization that "this site goes against our own values."

I take this as further evidence that the site was put up to demonstrate the founder's skills and to pave the way for job interviews or other career opportunities. I suspect that the founders built nothing more than a shop window, and that no one actually did any homework for a few, or even intended to.

I mean no ill towards the duo behind faismesdevoirs.com. They deserve recognition for drawing attention to a project very quickly, and probably at low cost: the project was discussed by the mainstream media, contested by France's leading daily, debated by the French education minister. The duo generated tremendous word-of-mouth, and probably an enviable number of site visits (hits).

Bt can we speak of buzz? I have my reservations, mostly because I doubt there really was a product or service actually on offer.

The French take school seriously. And in the French model, homework –schoolwork done outside the school walls– is serious business.

French students, starting in elementary school, routinely work several hours,every day; the 35-hour work week applies to workers, not to students. (I grew up in the United States and went to good schools, but apart from very few exceptions don't recall doing homework, at all, before I went to college.)

Tutoring services have developed to help students and their families deal with the workload. In Paris, where I live, ads for tutoring proliferate, and the practice seems to be thriving outside Paris as well.

The operating method is uniform: a tutor comes to your home and works with the student, one-on-one. The tutors are be either university students or teachers. There's no equivalent in France to "after-school schools" common in Japan or Korea, although the French also have "vacation schools" during schools breaks; these programs usually combine study and sport, or at least pleasant scenery.

There has been grumbling about the economic justice of the system, which puts tutoring out of reach of lower-income families; the Sarkozy administration has tried to address this, mostly for primary school students in need of extra help. But there seems to be broad tolerance of the tutoring system, and even strong demand –from parents and society generally– for a steady stream of homework.

A development in the tutoring business created a huge scandal in France this week. A web site, faismesdevoirs.com (meaning: do my homework dot com) offers, for a few euros, to solve math problems, write essays, or correct homework.

Most commentators take the site seriously, and are not pleased. Le Monde carried an editorial that excoriated the service and demanded that it be outlawed. Times columnist Charles Bremer reports on the situation thoughtfully and completely.

My reaction: is this for real?

When first told about the service, I had trouble believing that French kids would have there wherewithal to make online payments. I went to the web site but found it "paused": not offline, not closed, but with a front page that said, in essence, "be back soon!"

French web site Le Post reports that people presented as the homework site's "team" might be fictitious, and that their photo seems to come from a photo bank.

Here's what I think: by launching the service –real or not– the founders have demonstrated some kind of aptitude. At low cost, lots of people are aware of the site, and are talking about it. The founders can soon claim that political pressure –actual or threatened– forced them to shut down their operation. And then they can go on the (job) interview circuit. I can think of plenty of recruiters who'd be eager to talk the founders, if only to hear them explain the genesis of the site. They'll get interviews, and they'll stand out from the mass of similarly situated candidates.