French Education Sysytem
by A M ISHWARYA
1. Centralized Curriculum including overseas
2. Education is compulsory for children between the ages of 3 and 16 and consists of four cycles
2.1. Preschool (écoles maternelles) – ages 3 to 6 Primary school (école élémentaire) – ages 6 to 11 Middle school (collège) – ages 11 to 15 High school (lycée) – ages 15 to 18
2.2. Child will be assigned to a school that is close to his/her home
2.3. September - June
2.3.1. Holidays (15 Weeks)
2.4. Each class typically elects one parent representative for school council meetings
2.5. Students typically have lessons on literacy, numeracy, geography, history, and a foreign language, which is often English in primary schools
3. There are 522 French schools from nursery school to secondary school in 139 countries with 370,000 students in total. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs coordinates the French school network overseas. Some celebrities abroad decide to enrol their children in French schools
3.1. Number of Schools in France : DATA by https://www.statista.com/ Public Nursery schools(Preschool) - 14,283 Primary schools - 43,568 Secondary schools(middle school (collège) &high school (lycée)) - 5,316 Private Nursery schools - 135 Primary schools - 5,754 Secondary schools - 2,049
4. Teachers equivalent to civil servants
5. Monitoring is done by surveillants in secondary schools
6. Small group work and Team projects
7. Education free, co-ed, and secular through effort not fun
8. Music or Art in early secondary school
9. Only the best students have high math skills in French Education
10. There are a lot of private and public nurseries, called crèches. These daycare centers keep babies from 2 months to 3 years old, until they can attend the Ecole Maternelle. There ares everal types of crèches providing different services.There are more than 11,000 Crèches in France, but getting a slot can be hard, and mothers are advised to look for a slot as soon as they are pregnant. Other alternatives exist, Assitantes Maternelles can keep 3 or 4 babies at their home and are recognized by the French State.
11. Key figures: "535 overseas schools under the French system, located in 139 countries. Of France’s 67 million residents, 13 million are children in primary and secondary schools, and over 800,000 are teachers. About 17% of schools are private. Approximately 97% of these private schools are under contract (contrat d’état).These schools are largely Catholic."
12. The philosophy of French education covers: A respect for the teacher's authority An absolute grading system Rote learning combined with a strong focus on analytical thought High academic expectations
13. Several parents’ associations with links to major political factions.
14. The three challenges
14.1. Average score of middle school students in reading literacy, mathematics and science is below
14.2. Recruitment crisis
14.2.1. Teachers are underpaid and undervalued
14.2.2. Shortage of teachers as they are quitting in more numbers
14.2.3. French teachers have held one of the biggest education strikes