The Educational System in North America and Europe : an Informal Overview

by Gregor v. Bochmann, University of Ottawa, Canada
(visiting Hunan University of Science and Technology – October to Nov. 2009)

You can find this text at http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~bochmann/talks/talk-educational-system/

Abstract: An overview of the educational system in North-America and Europe will be given, concentrating on the organization of universities. The following aspects will be covered:
- Historical perspective
- Different levels of education
- Financial aspects of university education
- Organization of universities - faculties and departments
- Teaching programs
- Organization of courses, lectures etc.
- The teaching personnel
- Course evaluations
- Professors’ tasks and career
- Quality assurance for universities
- Organization of research and research funding
- International exchanges

Thanks to Liu Jianxun < ljx529@gmail.com>  for suggesting this topic.

1st Part: General considerations
2nd Part: Some slides about the University of Ottawa and the Engineering Faculty

1st Part: General considerations

Historical perspective

• First universities in Europe in Middle Age (before 1500 AC), e.g. Bologna (Italy), Coimbra (Portugal), Prague (Tcheque), Heidelberg (Germany)
• Education was run by the church, only a small fraction of the population studied
• Mid of 19th century: compulsory public school system introduced (e.g. by Bismarck in Germany) – first primary school
• In Canada, most of primary and secondary schools were run by the church (catholic and/or protestant) until around the midth of 20th century

Different levels of education

A good overview of the Canadian education system is given in the Wikipedia (see Internet link – or local copy)

• Day care – or Nursery school (up to age 4) if parents work
• Kindergarden (two years before primary school)
• Primary school (from age of 6, for 6 years)
• Secondary / High school (6 years) –
• Learning the profession
• some schools have options for “métier”
• certain colleges provide professional studies
• University
• Bacc (3 – 4 years
• Master (1.5 to 2 years)
• PhD
• non-standard cases
• Engineering schools in France: 3 years preparatory studies, then entrance examination plus two years of study
• Quebec (Canada): last year of high school and first year of university: CEGEP general studies; or 3 years of professional studies
• Germany (old structure): bacc and Master combined within a single “Diploma”
• University diploma standardization in Europe: Bologna model – similar to what we have in Canada (see Internet link – or incomplete local copy)

Financial aspects

• Public – private schools
• Public primary and secondary schools are normally completely supported by the government and there are no student fees.
• Private primary and secondary schools normally require the student (or parents) to pay for the instruction. In same states, they receive partial support from the government (e.g. in Quebec)
• Advantages of private schools ??
• In Germany (when I was young) they had the reputation to be easier to pass.
• In Canada, they have the reputation to be better.
• Public – private universities
• In Europe, practically all universities are publicly owned
• In the USA, many universities (and many of the best) are privately owned
• In Canada, public and private universities receive the same government funding support (so the difference between public and private is not so important)
• Tuition fees
• In Europe, there are practically no tuition fees (at least for European students)
• Private universities in the USA often have excessively high tuition fees
• In Canada, tuition fees for Canadians and immigrants are relatively low (2 to 6000$ per year) but usually higher for foreign students. (The real costs are of the order of 18 000$ per year).
• Funding formula for universities
• In Canada, the government provides support to the universities proportional to the number of students (but foreign students do not count).
• In Europe, universities are fully supported by the government as far as their teaching function is concerned.
• For funding of research, see below.
• Financial support for undergraduate / graduate students
• At the undergraduate level, financial support for students is normally available in terms of government-backed loans (to be paid back when the student has a job); in exceptional cases the student may get some scholarship
• At the graduate level (Master and PhD) in the USA and Canada, most students receive some scholarship money from research funds obtained by their supervisor. Some very bright students get an independent scholarship. There scholarships are much less than a normal salary. In Germany, PhD students are employed by the university (with a normal salary) to give some courses and help in teaching.

Organization of universities : Faculties – departments

• Historically: first only theology, law, medicine; later all the other disciplines
• University means universal knowledge; 500 years ago, some people could have universal knowledge; some people say, Goethe (a german poet, writer and scientist) was the last person with universal knowledge; nowadays, nobody can know all knowledge.
• In many countries (e.g. Germany), there are universities (all sciences) and technical “universities” (in Germany called Hochschule - “high-school”) essentially specializing in engineering and natural sciences
• In Canada, medical faculties are only in a smaller number of universities; some universities specialize on languages and social sciences; the big universities are sometimes called “research universities” (they have Master and PhD programs in most disciplines); other universities may be more limited to bachelor teaching.
• Within a faculty, there are several departments (or schools). These departments are responsible to provide the teaching related to specific bachelor and graduate programs. Exemple: University of Ottawa (see Internet link - or local copy)
• A professor is hired for one department, sometimes cross-appointed to another department (promoting multi-disciplinary activities).

Teaching programs – interdisciplinary programs

• Bachelor level:
  • Programs in each field: 3 or 4 (honours) years
  • In fields with professional societies (e.g. engineering): assurance of being accepted in the society
  • Interdisciplinary programs:
    • Combined fields
    • Major and minor fields
  • Cooperative programs: teaching periods interleaved with practical work in industry (with some salary), e.g. 3 four-months periods at UofOttawa
  • Example: School of Information Technology and Engineering (SITE) at the University of Ottawa
• Graduate level:
  • Courses for Master and PhD students (combined)
  • Master at UofOttawa: 2 trimesters full course load, then Master research project (typically requiring one year, including write-up of thesis and defence); there is also the option of doing the project in industry.
  • PhD at UofOttawa: 1 trimester full course load, then research project (total of 3 to 5 years, sometimes longer)
    • Comprehensive exam (after about 1 year): show sufficient background knowledge in the proposed field of research
    • Thesis proposal (when background literature survey has been done and a research topic has been selected, maybe some initial results already obtained) – written proposal evaluated by 3 professors (including supervisor)
    • Thesis: before being submitted, must be accepted by supervisor; evaluated by a committee of four professors (not including supervisor), one external (from different university); four levels of appreciation: accept, accept with minor revisions (to be done within one month), requires major revisions and new evaluation, failed.
• Note: All programs can be taken full-time or part-time (student having a job at the same time)
• Note: At the UofOttawa, we give courses in English and in French (the students can choose). But most universities use only one language. Some universities in Europe in non-english-speaking countries use English for graduate teaching (to attract students from different countries)

Cours organization – lectures, tutorials, labs, etc.

• A typical course may include the following activities for the students:
  • Lectures
  • Tutorial sessions (discuss more examples, how to use tools, etc)
  • Lab sessions (students do practical work, experiments, etc. using given experimental set-up or tool environment); often requiring the preparation of lab reports (which are marked and evaluated)
  • Individual homework
    • studying lecture material, tutorials etc.
    • doing assignments (to be marked and evaluated)
    • working on little course projects (possibly in groups)
• Class sizes:
  • Lectures: bachelor – 10 to 150 at UofOttawa; graduate – 5 to 50
  • Tutorials and lab sessions: maximum 30 (labs are often performed by students in groups of two)
• Student evaluation
  • Students are evaluated based on different activities; the importance of the different activities is fixed for each course by the professor at the beginning of the course.
  • Typical activities are: final exam, mid-term exam, assignments, lab reports, quizzes done during lecture hours (possibly without notice)
  • Example: my course on Software Construction - Calendar description: General principles and techniques for disciplined low-level software design. BNF and basic theory of grammars and parsing. Use of parser generators. Basics of language and protocol design. Formal languages. State-transition and table-based software design. Formal methods for software construction. Techniques for handling concurrency and inter-process communication. Tools for model-driven construction. Introduction to Middleware. Hot-spot analysis and performance tuning.
• Course descriptions
  • Description included in official documentation of the university: course number, title, overview of content (four lines)
  • Course description prepared by professor (see example of my course on Software Construction: Internet link - or local copy)

Teaching personnel

• Professors
• lecturers (no research task) – sometimes not a permanent position
• part-time ad-hoc lecturers
• graduate students (sometimes undergraduates) take the role of teaching assistants (TA) and a paid to lead tutorial or lab sessions, and to do the marking of assignments and quizzes. At UofOttawa, the evaluation of exams is only done by the professor (or lecturer) responsible for the course.

Teaching evaluation

• Most universities have procedures for evaluating the quality of teaching provided by professors and lecturers.
• At UofOttawa, the students of each course fill in a questionnaire towards the end of the course with specific questions about how they appreciated the course. The results are compiled by the faculty and communicated to the professor.

Professor’s tasks : teaching, research, administration

• Usually, one says that the professor’s tasks are teaching, research and administration. Some universities associate importance factors, such as 40% for teaching, 40% for research, and 20% for administration.
• However, there is usually some flexibility: some professors do less research and more teaching (or more administration) and inversely.
• Often, participation in important administrative duties (department head, teaching committee, hiring and promotion committee, etc.) reduces the teaching load of the professor.

Professor career, permanence, sabbatical years

• Assistant professor: requirement normally a PhD; in some faculties and some universities, it is normal to first an experience as post-doctoral researcher for one to three years.
  • An assistant professor is normally hired for 3 years, renewable for another 3 years (no permanent job).
• Associate professor: requirement normally 5 years as assistant professor and having shown good performance as a teacher and as a researcher. The employment is normally permanent ("tenure" - for life (until retirement)).
  • In the USA and Canada, the assistant professor becomes normally associate professor at the same university ("tenure track" position). In Germany, one becomes associate professor at a different university.
• (Full) professor: requirement normally 6 years as associate professor and good performance.
• A professor may take a university management career: head of department, dean of faculty (or associate), and within the direction of the university. He may also go back to his department as a “normal” professor.
• In most universities in North America, a professor is eligible for a sabbatical year every 7 years (or a semi-sabbatical after 3 years). This is a period dedicated to research, often associated with a long-term visit at an important research group in a different city or country. It can also be used for intense collaboration with industry by working at the industry premises.

Quality assurance for universities

• Feedback from student body
• Formal teaching evaluation (see above)
• Student representatives participate in the plenary meetings at the departmental, faculty and university levels
• Students may complain about inappropriate situations
• Internal and external evaluations (teaching programs, research programs)
• At UofOttawa, all teaching programs are evaluated by some internal inter-faculty committee or an external committee (composed of professors from different universities) at regular intervals (maybe every 7 years). Research programs are usually not evaluated at the university level; but they rely on competitive research funding.
• Accreditation of professional programs (medicine, engineering, etc)
• Programs leading to a professional degree are usually evaluated and accredited by the corresponding pan-Canadian professional association.
• Only students finishing an accredited program can become member of the professional association (other people have to take special courses and exams).
• For engineering degrees, the CEAB (Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board) accreditates our programs. The CEAB has strict guidelines about number of hours of teaching in different fields, such as basic science, engineering design, related fields, etc.

Research and research funding

• All professors are supposed to do research. There is a saying: without doing research, you will not be a good university teacher, especially at the graduate level.
• Universities usually only provide funding for indirect costs of research (lab space, budget and people administration), but not for the direct costs (lab equipment, people’s salaries). However, the salary for the professor’s time is provided.
• The direct costs of research must be funded by external sources, such as:
• Government research funding agencies
• Collaborative research agreements with industry or government research labs – often with support from research funding agencies
• Industrial research contract (industry pays for direct and indirect costs of the research performed at the university)
• In Canada, we have several major research funding agencies:
• NSERC (natural sciences and engineering research council); similarly for the medical sector, and for the sector of social sciences and arts
• Infrastructure funding agency (Foundation for Innovation): for major infrastructure projects – new buildings, major lab equipments, networking infrastructure, equipment for young researchers, etc.
• Similar agencies at the provincial level.
• Types of projects funded by NSERC:
• Discovery grants: relatively small grants (typically for funding 1 to 3 graduate students and some traveling – for a period of 5 years), but much freedom for the professor (no milestones, direction of research may change); reporting is done when a proposal for new research funding is made.
• Funding criteria: (1) past record of good research, (2) good research proposal, (3) good opportunity for training graduate students
• The amount of funding obtained is sometimes taken as a measure of the quality of research done by the professor.
• Collaborative research grants
• Additional evaluation criteria: relevance to industry and possibility of practical applications
• Research proposal must include milestones, and intermediate and final reports must be produced explaining how the milestones have been met.
• Most important types of collaborative research grants:
• Strategic grant: need for industry interest (maybe financial contribution)
• Collaborative research and development (CRD): NSERC matches the financial contribution of industry
• Industrial research chairs (with matched funding) provides salary of prestigious professor that works in topics of interest to industry, also funding for equipment, post-doctoral researchers and graduate students.
• Research networks – involve professors from several universities that work jointly on a them of interest to the industrial partners (normally several companies).
• Networks of centers of excellence – involving large number of professors from many universities (meant to stimulate collaboration in a given domain)

International exchanges

• International exchanges are encouraged at several levels
• Sabbatical years (see above) – professor may spend a year (or less) at another research institution
• International research collaborations – the funding agencies support certain forms of international research collaborations: (1) to explore collaboration possibilities, (2) to finance collaborative research
• Students are encouraged to study one year abroad. Many universities have exchange programs with universities abroad for such student exchanges (in both directions)
• Some universities have agreements about joint degrees – mostly in Europe (for instance, joint Master degree from two universities in different countries in Europe, or joint degree from Canadian and European universities). Such a joint degree implies studying at both universities for some time.

2nd Part: Some slides about the University of Ottawa and the Engineering Faculty

All information about the university and many administrative transactions are available through the Internet. Here are some examples:

• Welcome page of the University (incomplete copy)
• Page about international students and exchanges (incomplete copy)
• Welcome page of the Faculty of Engineering (incomplete copy)
• Welcome page of the School of Information Technology and Engineering (SITE) (incomplete copy)

• Note: SITE was created in 1997 through the combination of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Computer Science (belonging to the Faculty of Sciences). At the same time, a new engineering degree in Software Engineering was created (now essentially aligned with the ACM-IEEE curriculum proposal for SE – see Curriculum Guidelines (here is a copy of the final document)). Most of SITE is now housed in a new building which was completed in 2003.
• Slides presenting the Faculty of Engineering prepared by the Dean, Claude Laguë, in 2009
• Slides about the Software Engineering program prepared by Tim Lethbridge in 2009 for a visiting delegation from China