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Report on French education system


Will
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Picked up from another forum -

http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2010/05/12/la-cour-des-comptes-denonce-le-systeme-scolaire-francais_1350226_3224.html

It would appear that the French equivalent to the National Audit Office has produced a highly critical report on education in France, concluding that despite the high budget the system is elitist, rooted in the past, and fails to meet the needs of the majority of students.

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Yes, I thought about the same person.

The only thing that was new to me was the fact that the per capita education budget in France is very high according to the report (maybe even the highest in Europe) yet the standards are pretty poor. If a similar conclusion had been drawn about the UK then there would no doubt have been an outcry on this forum. So as a French taxpayer I just want to say that I'm pretty disgusted that my money is being spent on a substandard system.

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Which is one of the reasons some Brits are going back - because their children hate the 'learn by rote and regurgitate' method.

It is so sad to see kids totally switched off learning languages- grammar, vocab,  grammar, vocab, in a sort of vacuum- no fun, no oral or listening comp. Same way I learnt in the 50s!

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  • 2 weeks later...

[quote user="Will"]Picked up from another forum -
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2010/05/12/la-cour-des-comptes-denonce-le-systeme-scolaire-francais_1350226_3224.html

It would appear that the French equivalent to the National Audit Office has produced a highly critical report on education in France, concluding that despite the high budget the system is elitist, rooted in the past, and fails to meet the needs of the majority of students.

[/quote]

Something we been saying on the forum for years.

Whilst perhaps the UK has gone too far in terms of measuring performance of the system, in France measuring the performance of the education system is non-existent. Poor results are blamed on the kids. I find most teachers lazy, and incompetent at "teaching" ; they are promoted on age rather than ability. The whole system particularly from college upwards is a disgrace. The BAC is an elitist exam (see the Senat report http://www.senat.fr/rap/r07-370/r07-3701.pdf ) , with few possibilities for those not having the ability, but not wanting to do a ProBac. France is one of the worst countries in Europe in respect of providing academically educated students at 18 years old and is seeing too many now take the BacPro option.

However, it should be remembered that the values of this system are entrenched in French life. This is a country where your job for life is dictated by the exam results in your hand, rather than your personal qualities and future potential.

Richard

 

 

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The BAC is an elitist exam (see the Senat report http://www.senat.fr/rap/r07-370/r07-3701.pdf ) , with few possibilities for those not having the ability, but not wanting to do a ProBac. France is one of the worst countries in Europe in respect of providing academically educated students at 18 years old and is seeing too many now take the BacPro option.

However, it should be remembered that the values of this system are entrenched in French life. This is a country where your job for life is dictated by the exam results in your hand, rather than your personal qualities and future potential.

Richard

 

There certainly is something wrong with French Education. My wife assists with an national organisation called SOCRATES, it's a new initiative. They are a quasi-state organisation (quango) that provide assistance to what were called NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) kids in the UK. In Meaux there are about 32% of 16-25 year are classified as NEET. I always sort of assumed this was because of the higher level of social housing, as you find in any French suburb. Now, I'm being transferred, so the missus has to find a new job. She went for an interview with SOCRATES in Libourne, a nice looking town, half hour commute to Bordeaux, where the L'Isle comes into the Dordogne. 48% NEET population[:-))] Quick change of opinion on Meaux[:$]

For comparison, for what it's worth, we checked with a former colleague at an organisation that does exactly the same in the UK, admittedly it's Newbury. NEET population as of last Monday, 69, about 2.5%.

Dog help the French kids.[:@]

 

 

 

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One of the reasons for the high level of NEETs will undoubtedly be social expectations.  Finish school as quickly as possible and go and get a job, any job. Libourne is a pretty little but it's still very rural arround there and most local employment will  be on the vineyards.  We lived for a while in a small town on the edge of Les Landes where employment was either working in the forest, at the local sicerie (wood again), at the carrot factory or the pig producers.  And lots of seasonal jobs like picking asparagus and carrots. There was virtuaally no what you might call white collar work.  When a new prof principal took over at the college the pass mark at the brevet was 25% - he dragged it up to 50% amongst loud protests - he was driving the children too hard, it wasn't necessary etc etc.  One girl, a friend of my daughter's, was actually forbidden by the conseil de classe from taking a BEP which would lead to being an assistante in a maison de retraite because her average was so high and they said she must go to lycée and do her bac.  Her parents weren't pleased but accepted it.

My eldest child worked as a remplacement in a rural collége in the Haute Garonne last year and said it was the same there - at least half her class of troisiemes were marking time until they could leave and work in farming had no interest in getting any sort of qualifications. 

And in comparing NEETs is like being compared with like?  I have no idea, just wondering what 5 GCSE's (which I gather doesn't account to much anyway) are equivalent to. 

The final thing is should there be such an emphasis on everyone getting a qualification?  Is it not possible to accept that some kids are simply not suited to classroom situations - for whatever reason - and should be helped to find work where they can either support themselves, if that's what they want to or have to do, or to start at the bottom and be given a chance to work upwards.

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[quote user="Joanna"]

The final thing is should there be such an emphasis on everyone getting a qualification?  Is it not possible to accept that some kids are simply not suited to classroom situations - for whatever reason - and should be helped to find work where they can either support themselves, if that's what they want to or have to do, or to start at the bottom and be given a chance to work upwards.

[/quote]

This might be said for many countries. Let them work getting a trade half-time and continue some form of basic education in the rest, from 14 onwards for a couple of years, and then onto the job market. By the way, which country are we talking about here.

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NEET doesn't automatically mean no, or few, exam qualifications, though there is a corralation. It means doing (literally) nothing post school leaving age, apart from collecting state benefits. Certainly for my wife's nephews and neices, they have the motivation, they have the qualifications, in that they go to the UK and get jobs, but there seems absolutely no work for them in France, not even at McDo, or InterClerc stacking shelves. My MiL thinks they're all lazy, and stupid........(jobs were easy in her day). My wife thinks it's Chirac and Sarko fault. I'm not allowed an opinion. 
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[quote user="velcorin"] I'm not allowed an opinion. [/quote]Quite right too.  If you chaps start having opinions I don't know where we'll all end up.[Www]

 

My BiL's three kids have all gone back to the UK from sixth form onwards. He is a faculty head at Marseille Uni' and is generally pretty damning about the standards of education amongst the undergraduates - most especially the lack of imagination in the teaching they've been subjected to.  He's a Cambridge grad' but has worked in the US and Belgium as well as France and the UK so has something to compare it to.

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Yep. I've been married long enough to know that my opinion only counts if it agrees with her's, and woe betide me if I pause when asked to offer an opinion, as she then assumes I'm working out what her opinion is B4 I answer. Hence, why I refuse to go house hunting with her, too many chances of divorce proceedings.
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[quote user="woolybanana"][quote user="Joanna"]

The final thing is should there be such an emphasis on everyone getting a qualification?  Is it not possible to accept that some kids are simply not suited to classroom situations - for whatever reason - and should be helped to find work where they can either support themselves, if that's what they want to or have to do, or to start at the bottom and be given a chance to work upwards.

[/quote]

This might be said for many countries. Let them work getting a trade half-time and continue some form of basic education in the rest, from 14 onwards for a couple of years, and then onto the job market. By the way, which country are we talking about here.

[/quote]

Both.  My OH is convinced that one reason behind the drive to put more than 50% of the young into further education is to keep them out of the employment statistics and sometimes I have a nasty feeling that he might be right.  Whichever I can't help but feel it's pointless putting someone like my middle child into three years of post bac education simply so that she can get an entry level job in tourism which she was already capable of doing straight after her bac, likewise what's the point of one of the major British wine wharehouse chains demanding degree qualifications from youths who are basically shifting cases of wine about and will be learning about the wines on the job?  20 years ago it took anyone who was over 18, bright, motivated and looked like he/she would fit in.

I feel very strongly about this because I'm sure that the emphasis on qualifications is going to lead to an underclass of those aren't going to be able to better themselves because they don't have the necessary piece of paper.  There are always going to be some students who can't continue with their education becaause of family circs or lack of money - it's all very well offering loans or giving bourses but if you're needed to earn money right now to support your family further education can easily become an unaffordable luxury.

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  • 1 month later...
Which is exactly what my children's school in the UK does. From year 9, those more suited to practical subjects do the core subjects of maths and english, then do day-release at the local college in anything from hairdressing to bricklaying to motor mechanics. The school even has it's own fully functioning hair and beauty salon.  The school long ago recognised that trying to keep children in the classroom learning academic subjects when they didn't want or need to be there was counter-productive on many levels from learning to behaviour.  I doubt it's the only school in the UK like it.
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