The Écolenormalesupé(also known as ENS de Lyon, ENSL or Normale Sup' Lyon) is a French grande école located in the city of Lyon. It is one of the four prestigious écoles normales supérieures in France. The school is composed of two academic units —Arts and Sciences— with campuses in Lyon, near the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers.
ENSL's students usually enjoy a special civil servant status in the wake of highly competitive exams, providing they pursue careers in public service. Although it maintains extensive connections with the University of Lyon and external research institutions, including the CNRS, the school remains independent.
History
Training teachers for normal schools
L'École normale supérieure de Lyon is the descendant of two top educational institutions founded by Jules Ferry: L'École normale supérieure de Fontenay-aux-Roses, for girls, founded in 1880. L'École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud, for boys, founded in 1882. Recruiting among the most brilliant French students, these two schools used to train the professors of the French normal schools. Whereas these schools were largely regarded as meritocratic, their sisters – the eldest, l'École Normale Supérieure de la Rue d'Ulm, and her feminine counterpart, l'École normale supérieure de jeunes filles de Sèvres -, which trained academics, were de facto dedicated to the heirs of the Parisian elites.
A shift towards secondary and higher education
Following a reform of normal schools, the decree of February 19, 1945 granted both institutions the title of Écoles normales préparatoires à l'enseignement secondaire. The schools' purpose changed with the growth of the French education system. By 1956, the length of studies was increased to four years in order to institute a preparation for the agrégation – a prestigious teaching qualification. Increasingly opening up to research, they aligned their development strategies with those of the ENS Ulm and Sèvres.
The relocation in Lyon
As part of France's process of decentralisation, the Schools' scientific departments moved in 1987 to Gerland, an old industrial district of Lyon, in the premises of the current Monod campus. The relocated institution was named ENS Lyon. Humanities students remained in the Parisian suburbs within the coeducational École normale supérieure de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud. In 2000, this school, informally renamed École normale supérieure lettres et sciences humaines, was transferred to the new Descartes Campus also located in Gerland.
On the first of January 2010, the two branches merged to become a single institution, retaining the name École normale supérieure de Lyon.
Academics
ENS de Lyon is a Grande École, a French institution of higher education that is separate from, but parallel and connected to the main framework of the French public university system. Similar to the Ivy League in the United States, Oxbridge in the UK, and C9 League in China, Grandes Écoles are elite academic institutions that admit students through an extremely competitive process. Grandes Écoles typically they have much smaller class sizes and student bodies than public universities in France, and many of their programs are taught in English. While most Grandes Écoles are more expensive than French universities, ENS de Lyon charges the same tuition fees: €243 annually for the master's degree in 2021–2022; €184 for the Bachelor's. International internships, study abroad opportunities, and close ties with government and the corporate world are a hallmark of the Grandes Écoles. Degrees from École normale supérieure are accredited by the Conférence des Grandes Écoles and awarded by the Ministry of National Education (France) (). Alums go on to occupy elite positions within government, administration, and corporate firms in France.
Teaching at the ENS de Lyon is organised through twelve main departments, spread over the two campuses:
Monod Campus: Natural and Experimental Sciences Departments
Biology
Chemistry
Computer science
Earth science
Mathematics
Physics
Descartes Campus: Humanities and Social Sciences Departments
Arts and humanities: Musicology, Cinema and Theater studies, Classics and modern French Literature Economics Education and digital humanities Foreign languages, Literatures and Civilisations: Arabic, Chinese, English, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian Human sciences: Philosophy, Cognitive science and Anthropology Social sciences: Sociology, History, Geography, Political science and International studies