Rachida Dati recently acted for the start of the school year 2025 the implementation of a strategy that it had launched last summer: grouping within the same direction, a “DGEDC”, general Directorate of education and Cultural Democracy, all schools and higher education training on which the Ministry of Culture exercises its supervision – and they are varied. Cinema, plastic and visual arts, dramatic art and live spectacle, music and of course architecture, all artistic fields are concerned. Thus national superior conservatories of music and dance of Paris and Lyon, of the National School of Fine Arts in Paris such as that of Cergy, Fémis, National Superior Conservatory of Dramatic Art, National Center for Circus of Châlons-en-Champagne, National School of Higher Higher Arts and of course all 21 ENSA, Superior National Schools of Architecture speaking.
Everyone will easily understand the virtues that such a regrouping would present; First of all, the strength of the number, which is not negligible when it comes to chatting with a neighbor who looks like a giant: the Ministry of Higher Education and Research. The fact remains that a large cleavage also crosses this grouping of establishments which may appear a priori Like cousins: project pedagogy, “learn to be author” trying to “be creative”, paradoxical injunction combining the new as well as repetition, and which differs in this interpretation, music or dramatic art schools. Among the so -called artistic teaching establishments, this sharing line indeed separates arts and architecture schools, where we teach project (which involves bothlearn to be located, practice techniques, and produce projects), as opposed to conservatories where we learn to interpreta role or a partition. Second cleavage, more discreet but acting with a pernicious and throbbing influence that can cause dangerous cracks: the inequalities of treatment, sometimes important, of teachers exercising within these various establishments.
The terms of the “mission to assess the scenarios of a new organization of higher education management” entrusted on July 12, 2024 to Luc Allaire, secretary general of the ministry, were clear: faced with “a strong burst and important coordination costs”, how to optimize the management of training? This letter of mission was a form of prelude to the national strategy for architecture unveiled at the beginning of February 2025. It was indeed already a question of research and “academic standards”, mobility and international influence, alternation development in connection with the professional sectors concerned, development of continuing education, monitoring of professional integration, opening of access to formations and procedures Schools …
The new SNA covers the period which stretches from 2025 to 2029. It is therefore a concerted policy and maintained over a relatively long time with some experiences or pilot fish launched here and there. In a way, this is a bit of what will have sought to implement, with no doubt more hostility than expected, the attempt to bring together the ENSBA and the ENSA of Paris-Malaquais initiated on the historic site of Fine Arts where, among architects at least, everything starts and everything ends [cf. AMC, n°331, avril 2025]. But the story is not over. It is long and the next episode refers to the appointment, soon no doubt, of a new director for the ENSBA – according to The world [19 mars 2025] Five candidates are still in the running.
The mission letter already indicated the attention to bring to the “strong historical attachment” of each of the sectors concerned in their respective departments, as well as “the support to be expected from the partners accustomed to the current organization of the supervision”. As of April 30, as soon as the announcement of this “unified and embodied piloting for higher education”, the CGT Culture in fact, strongly reacted by a press release to the incendiary title: “Not content with manhandling its general directions, the minister could set fire to schools! ». On the side of the architects, it is permissible to question the persistence of the contours of a direction which would thus see the largest part of the budget that it had so far to manage. Founded since 2010 in the general direction of heritage and architecture, what would Dapa remain as we have known and what missions would it keep? Promote creation and ensure the promotion of quality, architectural and landscape, ensure the supervision of order … and to award the national Grand Prix?
