Education in France

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School system in France

The French educational system is highly centralized, organized, and
ramified. It is divided into three different stages:

primary education (enseignement primaire);

secondary education (enseignement secondaire);

higher education (enseignement supérieur).

Primary and secondary education are predominantly public (private schools
also exist, in particular a strong nationwide network of primary and secondary
Catholic education).
Education has both public and private elements. The Programme
for International Student Assessment, coordinated by the OECD,
currently ranks France's education as the 25th best in the world, being neither
significantly higher nor lower than the OECD average.[1]

Contents

1 History

2 Governance

3 Primary
education

4 Secondary
education

4.1 Brevet des
collèges

4.2 Baccalauréat

5 Higher education

5.1 Tuition
costs

5.2 Universities in
France

5.3 Grandes écoles &
CPGE

5.4 Recruitment of
teachers

6 Statistics for education in
France

7 See also

8 References

[edit]
History

Jules Ferry

Main article: History of
education in France

While the French trace the development of their educational system to Charlemagne, the modern era
of French education begins at the end of the nineteenth century. Jules
Ferry, a lawyer holding the office of Minister of Public Instruction in the
1880s, is widely credited for creating the modern Republican school (l'école
républicaine) by requiring all children under the age of 15 - boys and girls
- to attend. He also made public instruction mandatory, free
of charge and secular (laïque). With
these laws, known as Jules Ferry laws, and
several others, the Third Republic
repealed most of the Falloux Laws of 1850-1851,
which gave an important role to the clergy.

Education in
France

Ministry
of National Education

Minister
Deputy
Minister

Luc Chatel

National education budget
(2009)

Budget:

€64.6 billion

General Details

Primary Languages:

French

System Type:

Central

Literacy (2003)

Total:

991

Male:

99

Female:

99

Enrollment

Total:

15.0 million2

Primary:

6.7 million

Secondary:

4.8 million

Post Secondary:

2.3 million3

Attainment

Secondary
diploma

79.7%

Post-secondary
diploma

27%

1As of
2004, literacy rates are no longer collected within INSEE
censuses.
2Includes private
education.
3Includes universities, CPGE, and technical
schools.

v • d • e

[edit]
Governance

All educational programmes in France are regulated by the
Ministry of National Education (officially called Ministère de l'éducation
nationale, de l'enseignement supérieur et de la recherche). The head of the
ministry is the Minister
of National Education, one of the highest-ranking officials in the cabinet.
As of September 2009, the Minister is Luc Chatel.

The teachers in public primary and secondary schools are all state civil servants, making
the ministère the largest employer in the country. Professors
and researchers in France's
universities are also employed by the state.

At the primary and secondary levels, the curriculum is the same for
all French students in any given grade, which includes public, semi-public and
subsidised institutions. However, there exist specialised sections and a variety
of options that students can choose. The reference for all French educators is
the Bulletin officiel de l'éducation nationale, de l'enseignement supérieur
et de la recherche (B.O.) which lists all current programmes and teaching
directives. It is amended many times every year.

Find B.O. archives on the Ministry's official
website

Zone

Académies

A

Caen, Clermont-Ferrand, Grenoble, Lyon, Montpellier, Nancy-Metz,
Nantes, Rennes, Toulouse

B

Aix-Marseille, Amiens, Besançon, Dijon, Lille, Limoges, Nice,
Orléans-Tours, Poitiers, Reims, Rouen, Strasbourg

C

Bordeaux, Créteil, Paris, Versailles

In the Metropolitan
territory, the school year extends from early-September to early-July. Most
students have off Bastille Day, 14 July. The
school calendar is standardized throughout the country, and is the sole domain
of the ministry.

In May schools need time to organise the exams (for example, the Baccalauréat). In the
overseas
departments and territories of France, the school calendar is set by the
local recteur.

Major holiday breaks are as follows:

All
Saints (la Toussaint), one and a half weeks around the end of
October and the beginning of November;

Christmas (Noël), two
weeks around Christmas Day and New Year's Day;

winter (hiver), two weeks starting in mid-February;

spring (printemps) or Easter (Pâques) , two
weeks starting in mid-April;

summer (été), two months starting in early-July.

[edit]
Primary education

Maternelle
(Kindergarten)

Age

Grade

Abbreviation

3 -> 4

Petite section

PS

4 -> 5

Moyenne section

MS

5 -> 6

Grande section

GS

École élémentaire
(Primary school)

Age

Grade

Abbreviation

6 -> 7

Cours préparatoire

CP / 11ème

7 -> 8

Cours élémentaire première année

CE1 / 10ème

8 -> 9

Cours élémentaire deuxième année

CE2 / 9ème

9 -> 10

Cours moyen première année

CM1 / 8ème

10 -> 11

Cours moyen deuxième année

CM2 / 7ème

Schooling in France is mandatory as of age 6,
the first year of primary school. Many parents start sending their children
earlier though, around age 3 as nursery classes
(maternelle) are usually affiliated to a borough's primary school. Some
even start earlier at age 2 in pré-maternelle classes, which are
essentially daycare centres. The last year
of maternelle, grande section is an important step in the
educational process as it is the year in which pupils are introduced to reading.

After nursery, the young students move on to primary school. It is in
the first year (cours préparatoire) that they will learn to write and
develop their reading skills. Much akin to other educational systems, French
primary school students usually have a single teacher (or perhaps two) who
teaches the complete curriculum, such as French, mathematics, science and humanities
to name a few. Note that the French word for a teacher at the primary school
level is professeur (previously called instituteur, or its
feminine form institutrice).

Religious instruction is not supplied by public schools. Laïcité
(secularism) is one of the main precepts of the French republic. Pupils therefore
have civics
courses to teach them about la République, its function, its
organisation, and its famous motto Liberté,
Égalité, Fraternité (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity).

In a March 2004 ruling, the French government banned all "conspicuous
religious symbols" from schools and other public institutions with the intent of
preventing proselytisation and to
foster a sense of tolerance among ethnic groups. Some religious and
libertarian groups showed
their opposition, saying the law hindered the freedom of religion as protected
by the French constitution.

See also: French
law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools

[edit]
Secondary education

Collège (Junior
High)

Age

Grade

Abbreviation

11 -> 12

Sixième

6e

12 -> 13

Cinquième

5e

13 -> 14

Quatrième

4e

14 -> 15

Troisième

3e

Lycée (High
school)

Age

Grade

Abbreviation

15 -> 16

Seconde

2de

16 -> 17

Première

1e

17 -> 18

Terminale

Term or Tle

Main article: Secondary
education in France

French secondary education is divided into two schools:

the collège for the first four years directly following primary school;

the lycée for the next three years.

The completion of secondary studies leads to the baccalauréat.

[edit]
Brevet des
collèges

The Brevet des
collèges is the first official diploma a pupil has to sit. It is not
required in order to enter lycée. Until 2006 the school marks for the
whole of the third (4ème) and final year (3ème) were taken into account for a
percentage of the mark. The rest of the mark consisted of the final exam, the
brevet. Pupils were only tested on French, Mathematics and
History/Geography/Citizenship for the exam.

Starting in 2007, only the marks from the final year (3ème) were taken into
consideration[vague].

[edit]
Baccalauréat

For more details on this topic, see Baccalauréat.

International educational scores
(1995)
(13-year-old's average score, TIMSS
Trends
in International Math and Science Study, 1995)

Countries:
(sample)

Global
rank

Maths

Science

Score

Rank

Score

Rank

Singapore

1

643

1

607

1

Japan

2

605

3

571

3

South Korea

3

607

2

565

4

Czech Republic

4

564

6

574

2

Belgium (Fl)

5

565

5

550

11

Hong Kong

6

588

4

522

24

Bulgaria

7

540

11

565

5

Netherlands

8

541

9

560

6

Slovenia

9

541

10

560

7

Austria

10

539

12

558

8

Slovakia

11

547

7

544

13

Hungary

12

537

14

554

9

Australia

13

530

16

545

12

Russia

14

535

15

538

14

Switzerland

15

545

8

522

25

Ireland

16

527

17

538

15

Canada

17

527

18

531

18

England

18

506

25

552

10

Sweden

19

519

22

535

16

Thailand

20

522

20

525

21

Israel

21

522

21

524

23

Germany

22

509

23

531

19

France

23

538

13

498

28

United States

24

500

28

534

17

New Zealand

25

508

24

525

22

Norway

26

503

26

527

20

Belgium (W)

27

526

19

471

36

Denmark

28

502

27

478

34

Source: TIMSS data, in The Economist
March 29th, 1997, p.25

The baccalauréat (also known as bac) is the end-of-lycée
diploma students sit for in order to enter university, a classe
préparatoire, or professional life. It is generally taken at 18 if the pupil
has not repeated a class during secondary school. The term baccalauréat
refers to the diploma and the examinations themselves. It is comparable to
English, Northern Irish, & Welsh A-Levels, American AP tests, the Irish Leaving Certificate,
New South Wales's Higher
School Certificate and the German Abitur.

Many students sit for the theory-oriented baccalauréat général which
is divided into three streams of study, called séries. The série
scientifique (S) is concerned with the natural sciences,
physical sciences and mathematics, the série économique et sociale (ES)
with economics, social sciences and
mathematics, and the série littéraire (L) focuses on French, foreign
languages, philosophy and the arts.
However, these séries are not exactly specialisations and every
bac-possessor has the right to enrol at any public university in the
catchment area if this applies to the subject they wish to apply for. Students
having followed the L series do not have enough scientific knowledge from their
secondary education alone to succeed in science university courses, therefore
some combinations of baccalauréats and university courses are very rare.

There is also the baccalauréat technologique and baccalauréat
professionnel. The former mixes theoretical and vocational training and
prepares students for professional higher studies, whereas the latter focuses on
vocational training and prepares students for a direct entry into the
marketplace.

[edit]
Higher education

Higher education in France is divided between grandes écoles and
public universities. Grandes écoles are selective whereas with universities, as
long as you have a baccalaureat you can get in to one. This has led to an
overwhelming amount of first year students, for example at the university of
Montpellier, first year students have had to sit outside their lecture rooms and
try to listen to lectures from steps stairs and corridors, unless they get there
very early to bag the seats that are inside.[2]

A striking trait of French higher education, compared with other countries,
is the small size and multiplicity of establishments, each specialized in a more
or less broad spectrum of areas. A middle-sized French city, such as Grenoble or Nancy, may have 2 or 3
universities (focused on science or sociological studies), and also a number of
engineering and other specialized higher education establishments. In Paris and its suburbs
there are 13 universities, none of which is specialized in one area or another,
and a large number of smaller institutions which are highly specialised.

It is not uncommon for graduate teaching programmes (master's degrees, the
course part of PhD programmes etc.) to be operated
in common by several institutions, allowing the institutions to present a larger
variety of courses.

In engineering schools, a large share of the teaching staff is often made up
of non-permanent professors; instead, part-time professors are hired to teach
one specific point only. These part-time professors are generally hired from
neighbouring universities, research institutes, or industries.

Another original feature of the French higher education system is that a
large share of the scientific research is not done by universities, but by
research establishments such as CNRS or INSERM. In many
cases, the research units of those establishments are installed inside
universities (or other higher education establishments), and jointly operated by
the research establishment and the university.

[edit]
Tuition costs

Since higher education is funded by the state, the fees are very low; the
tuition varies from 150€ to 700€ depending on the university and the different
levels of education. (licence, master, doctorate). One can therefore get
a Master's degree (in 5 years) for about 750-3,500€. Additionally, students from
low-income families can apply for scholarships, paying nominal sums for tuition
or textbooks, and can receive a monthly stipend of up to 450€/month.

The tuition in public engineering schools is comparable to universities,
albeit a little higher (around 700€). However it can reach 7000€ a year for
private engineering schools, and some business schools, which are all private or
partially private, charge up to 8900€ a year.

Health insurance for students is free until the age of 21, so only the living
costs and books expenses have to be added. After the age of 21 the health
insurance for students costs 200 € a year and cover most of the medical
expenses.

Although this is the case in many schools, some public schools have other
ways of gaining money. Some do not receive sufficient funds from the government
to hold many trips, and so these schools may ask for a small (optional) entrance
fee for new students.

[edit]
Universities in
France

The public universities in France are named after the big cities near which
they are located, followed by a numeral if there are several. Paris, for
example, has thirteen universities, labelled Paris I to XIII. Some of them are,
however, not in Paris itself, but in the suburbs.
In addition, most of the universities have taken a more informal name which is
usually the one of a personality or a particular place. Sometimes, it is also a
way to honor a famous alumnus, for example the science university in Strasbourg
is known as "Université Louis Pasteur" while its
official name is "Université Strasbourg I".

The French system is currently undergoing a reform, the Bologna process, which
aims at creating European standards for university studies, most notably a
similar time-frame everywhere, with three years devoted to the Bachelor's degree
("licence" in French), two for the Master's, and three for the doctorate. French
universities have also adopted the ECTS credit system (for example, a licence is
worth 180 credits). However the traditional curriculum based on end of semester
examinations still remains in place in most universities. This double standard
has added complexity to a system which also remains quite rigid. It is difficult
to change a major during undergraduate studies without losing a semester or even
a whole year. Students usually also have few course selection options once they
enroll in a particular diploma.

France also hosts various branch colleges of foreign universities. These
include Baruch College, the University
of London Institute in Paris, Parsons
Paris School of Art and Design and the American
University in Paris.

See also: List
of public universities in France

[edit]
Grandes écoles
& CPGE

Main article: Classe
Préparatoire aux Grandes Écoles

The Grandes écoles
of France are higher education establishments. They are generally focused on a
single subject area, such as engineering or business,
have a moderate size, and are often quite selective in their admission of
students. They are widely regarded as prestigious,[3][4]
and traditionally have produced most of France's scientists and executives.

The classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles (CPGE), widely known as
prépas, is a prep course with the main goal of training students for
enrollment in a Grande
École ; of which the best-known and most prestigious are Lycée
Saint-Louis, Lycée
Louis-Le-Grand, Lycée Henri IV, Lycée
Hoche, Lycée Janson de
Sailly, Lycée Stanislas,
Lycée Condorcet and Lycée
privé Sainte-Geneviève[5].
Admission to the CPGE is usually based on performance during the last two years
of high school, called Première and Terminale. The CPGE programs
are located within high schools but pertain to tertiary education, which means
that each student must have successfully passed their Baccalauréat (or
equivalent) to be admitted in CPGE. Each CPGE receives the files of hundreds of
applicants worldwide[citation
needed] every year during April and May, and selects its new
students under its own criteria. A few CPGE programmes, mainly the private CPGEs
(which account for 10% of CPGEs), also have an interview process or look at a
student's involvement in the community.

The oldest CPGEs are the scientific ones, which can only be accessed by
scientific Bacheliers. Scientific
CPGE are called MPSI ("Mathematics, Physics and Engineering Science"), PCSI
("Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering Science") or PTSI ("Physics, Technology,
and Engineering Science") in the first year, MP ("Mathematics and Physics"), PSI
("Physics and Engineering Science"), PC ("Physics and Chemistry") or PT
("Physics and Technology") in the second year.

First year CPGE students are called the 'Math Sup' - or Hypotaupe -
(Sup for "Classe de Mathématiques Supérieures", superior in French, meaning
post-high school), and second years 'Math Spé' - or Taupe - (Spés
standing for "Classe de Mathématiques Spéciales", special in French). The
students of these classes are called Taupins. Both the first and second
year programmes include as much as sixteen hours of mathematics teaching per
week, ten hours of physics, two hours of philosophy, two to four hours of (one
or two) foreign languages teaching and two to three hours of minor options:
either SI, Engineering Industrial Science or Theoretical Computer
Science (including some programming using the Pascal or CaML
programming languages, as a practical work). With this is added several hours of
homework, which can rise as much as the official hours of class. A known joke
among those students is that they are becoming monks for two years. Sometimes
three.

The literary and humanities CPGEs have also their own nicknames,
Hypokhâgne for the first year and Khâgne for the second year. The
students are called the khâgneux. These classes prepare for schools such
as the three Écoles
Normales Supérieures, the Ecole des Chartes, and
sometimes Sciences
Po.

There are also CPGE which are focused on economics (who prepare the admission
in business
schools). These later are known as "Prépa EC" and are split in two parts
("prépa EC spe mathematics" , generally for those who graduated the baccalaureat
S and "prépa EC spe éco" , for those who were in the economics section in the
lycée.). The most famous of those business schools are HEC Paris, ESSEC Business School and ESCP
Europe which propose a Master degree and an MBA.

The students of CPGE are also matriculated in universities, and can rejoin
college in case of failure of their grandes écoles ambitions or if they
just do not wish to become engineers and feel not able to pass the Écoles
Normales Supérieures competitive examinations. The ratio of students who
failed to enter grandes écoles is low in the scientifics and economics
CPGE, but high in humanities, for the only Grandes Écoles aimed at in
these classes are the Écoles
Normales Supérieures.

The amount of work required of the students is exceptionally high. In
addition to class time and homework, students spend several hours each week
completing exams and 'colles' (very often written 'khôlles' to look like a Greek
word, this way of writing being initially a khâgneux joke). The so called
'colles' are unique to French academic education in CPGEs. They consist of oral
examinations twice a week, in maths, physics, French and the foreign languages,
usually English and Spanish. Students, usually in groups of three, spend an hour
facing a professor alone in a room, answering questions and solving problems. In
CPGE littéraires (humanities), the system of 'colles' is different; they are
taken every quarter in every subject. Students have one hour to prepare a short
presentation that takes the form of a French-style dissertation (a
methodologically codified essay, typically structured in 3 parts: thesis,
counter-thesis, and synthesis) in history, philosophy, etc. on a given topic,
and that of a commentaire composé (a methodologically codified
commentary) in literature and foreign languages; as for the Ancient Greek or
Latin, they involve a translation and a commentary. The student then has 20
minutes to present his work to the teacher, who ends the session by asking some
questions on the presentation and on the corresponding topic. 'Colles' are
regarded as extremely stressful, particularly due to the high standards expected
by the teachers, and the subsequent harshness that may be directed at students
who do not perform adequately, but they are important in as much as they prepare
the students, from the very first year, to the oral part of the competitive
examination, reserved to the happy few who successfully pass the written
part.

[edit]
Recruitment of
teachers

Decades ago, primary teachers were educated in Ecoles Normales and secondary
teachers recruited through the "Agrégation" examination. The situation has been
diversified by the introduction in the 1950s of the CAPES examination for
secondary teachers and in the 1990s by the institution of "Instituts
Universitaires de Formation des Maîtres" (IUFM). University teachers are
recruited by special commissions, and are divided between:

"teachers-researchers" (enseignants-chercheurs), with at least a
doctorate: they teach classes and conduct research in their field of expertise
with a full tenure. They are either Maître de Conférences (Senior lecturers),
or Professeurs (Professors). Only a Professor can be the director of studies
for a PhD student. Net pay : from 2300 to 8800 euro (extra duties).

Secondary school teachers who have been permanently "detached" from their
original school position to teach in a university. They are not required to
conduct any research but teach twice as many hours as the
"teachers-researchers". They are called PRAG (professeurs agrégés) and PRCE
(professeurs certifiés). Their weekly service is 15 or 18 hours. Net
pay : from 1400 to 3900 euro.

CPGE teachers are usually "agrégés" or "chaire sup", detached by the
Inspection Générale, according to their qualifications and competitive exam
rank, but not only. Their weekly service is about 9 hours a week, 25 or 33
weeks a year. Net pay : from 2000 to 7500 euro (extra hours)

Primary school and kindergarten teachers (Professeurs des écoles),
educated in "Instituts
Universitaires de Formation des Maîtres" (IUFM), have usually a "licence"
(Bac+3). Their weekly service is about 31 hours a week.

[edit]
Statistics for
education in France

The French Republic has 63
million inhabitants, living in the 22 regions of metropolitan France and four overseas
departments (1.7 million). Despite the fact that the population is growing
slightly (up 0.4% a year), the number and proportion of young people under 25 is
falling. There are now fewer than 19 million young people in metropolitan
France, or 32% of the total population, compared with 40% in the 1970s and 35%
at the time of the 1990 census. France is seeing a slow aging of the population
— less marked however than in other neighbouring countries (Germany and Italy), especially as the annual
number of births is currently increasing slightly.

18 million pupils and students, i.e. a quarter of the population, are in the
education system. Of these, over 2 million are in higher education.

In 1999, France's GDP was close to FF 9,000 billion
(EUR 1,330 billion), i.e. FF 150,000 (EUR 22,000) per inhabitant. Of this total,
just over FF 600 billion (EUR 95 billion) were devoted to initial or continuing
education: 7.2% of GDP. As far as school education spending is concerned, France
is in a middle position, behind the Nordic countries (Sweden and Denmark), but fairly
significantly ahead of Italy and Japan.

[edit]
See also

Minister
of National Education (France)

Agence
pour l'enseignement français à l'étranger

Home Education in
France

University
of London Institute in Paris

[edit]
References

^
[1]

^
http://www.southerntimes.net/The-Failing-French-Education.html

^
Understanding the "Grandes Ecoles", http://www.understandfrance.org/France/Education.html, retrieved 2009-06-07

^
grande école, http://dictionary.reverso.net/french-english/grande%20%C3%A9cole, retrieved 2009-06-07

^
L'étudiant League Table 2008

v • d • e

Education in
Europe

Sovereign
states

Albania ·
Andorra ·
Armenia1 ·
Austria ·
Azerbaijan1 ·
Belarus ·
Belgium ·
Bosnia
and Herzegovina · Bulgaria ·
Croatia ·
Cyprus1 ·
Czech
Republic · Denmark ·
Estonia ·
Finland ·
France · Georgia1 ·
Germany ·
Greece ·
Hungary ·
Iceland ·
Ireland ·
Italy ·
Kazakhstan2 ·
Latvia ·
Liechtenstein ·
Lithuania ·
Luxembourg ·
Macedonia ·
Malta ·
Moldova ·
Monaco ·
Montenegro ·
Netherlands ·
Norway ·
Poland ·
Portugal ·
Romania ·
Russia2 ·
San
Marino · Serbia ·
Slovakia ·
Slovenia ·
Spain ·
Sweden ·
Switzerland ·
Turkey2 ·
Ukraine ·
United
Kingdom (England •
Northern
Ireland • Scotland •
Wales)

States
with limited
recognition

Abkhazia1 ·
Kosovo ·
Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic1 · Northern
Cyprus1 · South
Ossetia1 · Transnistria

Other entities

European
Union

Dependencies,
other
territories

Adjara ·
Akrotiri
and Dhekelia1 ·
Åland ·
Azores ·
Faroe
Islands · Gagauzia ·
Gibraltar ·
Guernsey ·
Jan
Mayen · Jersey ·
Madeira ·
Isle
of Man · Nakhchivan1 ·
Svalbard ·
Vojvodina

1 Partially
or entirely in Asia, depending on the border
definitions. 2 Transcontinental
country.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_France"

Categories: Education in
France

Hidden categories: All
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