Did you educate your children in France? What jobs are they doing now?

[Gemonimo]

One of my daughters took the option international bac at the Lycéé Magendie in Bordeaux. At the time the school was in a run down state (actually quite dangerous) but it has since been rebuilt and apparently is marvellous. Jen

[breizh]

My wife is Breton. A quick survey of her 11 nephews and neices here no longer in education shows only 1 incorporated, the rest are on contracts, training courses, or (mainly) unemployed. The 1 who is incorporated works behind the counter in CL, the sort of job it is impossible to fill in the UK.

The family is wealthy, well educated, motivated and my belle mere was Maire of a big town in Brittany. They have all the advantages it is possible for a french kid to have, money, contacts, influence, you name it. Any English kid who gets an incorporated position here has acheived something quite remarkable. Getting a real job in France for a school/university leaver is almost impossible.   

PS my wife has 10 sisters, so there are lots more job seekers in the pipeline!!

[Deby]

The family is wealthy, well educated, motivated and my belle mere was Maire of a big town in Brittany. They have all the advantages it is possible for a french kid to have, money, contacts, influence, you name it. Any English kid who gets an incorporated position here has acheived something quite remarkable. Getting a real job in France for a school/university leaver is almost impossible.   

I am truly shocked by this.  I really hope France will make it much easier for their youth to find jobs.  As an outsider looking in surely they need to make employing people easier. When you think of statistics both for UK and France are similar in terms of GDP etc, the French are obviously doing something right!

I know I have my opinions based on my own personal experiences and for those that live in France raising families I do admire you and you all have your very own personal reasons and success stories.   Who knows whether returning to the UK for us as a family is the best route or for those that raise children in France.  I think time will only tell.  I think we will all have our own successes and failures.  After all we are all different.

Deby

[raindog]

[quote user="Deby"]

  I really hope France will make it much easier for their youth to find jobs.  As an outsider looking in surely they need to make employing people easier.

[/quote]

Of course, but whenever a government tries to push through reforms in this direction the unions go berserk and the government backs down.

[Dobsie]

I've answered this question elsewhere so won't bore you with the same answer again. A couple of points have been made which I think are important, one the need to read & write fluently in English before kids can be called bi-lingual, two the importance / advantagte of being bi-cultural and thirdly, are we expecting our children to stay in the same country as us parents? I know I have never stayed close geographically to my parents and my sister lives in the US - my expectation is that my children will fly the nest to somewhere which offers them what they are looking for career-wise. They may return here when they are searching for an improved quality of life with their kids by which time we will be old and living in the centre of a town with all the amenities on tap!

BTW, my kids are 11, 9 and 6 and we moved to France via Switzerland 5 years ago.

[Mackyfrance]

[quote user="Dobsie"]

 and thirdly, are we expecting our children to stay in the same country as us parents? I know I have never stayed close geographically to my parents and my sister lives in the US - my expectation is that my children will fly the nest to somewhere which offers them what they are looking for career-wise. [/quote]

 

I'm certainly not expecting my children to stay here just because we are and like you I've never stayed that close to my own parents. What I'm interested to know is, if they wanted to stay in France, are there jobs for them. I think the answer to that seems to be a resounding no. In that case, is there any benefit to them staying here or would they be better off back in the UK where they will most likely have better job prospects? I've made no secret of the fact that I am very unimpressed with our experience of the French education system and I wonder if staying here any longer will, in fact, reduce their prospects in the UK or wherever else they chose to finish their education or look for work as their abilities in English will be diminished. This is a rhetorical question really as its something only we can decide but thanks to everyone for their input.

[groslard]

My son wasn't educated here, but did live and work here for four years after age 18. One of my jobs was also to prepare French young people aged 18-30 for working in an English speaking country , usually the UK but inceasingly Ireland and Canada, which has obvious appeal because of Québec. I hate large generalisations about 'the French/English' etc, so I will limit myself to impressions.

Some of the tendencies I found  were these:

The French education system tends to put academic knowledge before practical application,  so in languages there is a lot of learning about rather than using, and more emphasis on reading and writing than on speaking and listening, and in Music there is a lot of study of 'solfège' rather than playing the instrument for fun. This also tends to stifle discussion, because the students have to learn a lot of second-hand information. I used to joke that a French child had to learn the names of all the parts of a bike and then got a certificate in cycling before he went away to fall off  when he tried to ride it.

At the same time, perhaps because of this, a lot of emphasis is put on how many years of study have been completed, and the value of a job is measured in Bac+2/3/4/5 etc. They are also obsessed with the marks they got which they assume will ensure a job for life.

This is why there are students at 25+ and not only on courses like medecine.

The problem with all this is that a young person coming out of the system at 25 is ill equipped for the world of work, or anyworld outside the narrow academic one where their value is measured by 'notes'. French students are much less likely than UK ones to have taken a GAP year ot to have travelled. They often expect to find a job in their home town and are less willing to move to find work.

The system also seems to be aimed at preparing students for a life in the 'fonction publique'. The brightest are encouraged to go the 'Grandes Ecoles' , and others encouraged to take the 'concours'. I sometimes think that the system wants to turn out teachers of History and Geography. The "aggrégation" examination for this is fiendishly difficult, and carries enormous kudos in France.

There is very little emphasis on starting a business, (not surpising given the complications) and very little ideas of relationship between what is studied, and whether it could possibly lead to a job. The 'profs' have something to answer for here, because they don't want to lose good students, so they give utopian advice about what to study, without reference to the world of work.

I dealt with a graduate in Arts Administration who could barely type, and had  a very individual grasp of English ,  but wanted to work in London at one of the Museums.

We managed to find her a job selling postcards in a Museum shop..

On the positive side I found many students who were used to working enormously hard and for long hours, who were knowlegeable, polite, and had good IT skills.

My students weren't typical, because they were trying to do something about the lack of jobs in France by going abroad; and my son is not typical in that after 4 years in France and several years travelling round the world and working for quite long periods in places like Israel and South America he finally settled back in the UK with a foreign wife.

I think the answer lies in being flexible, being prepared to travel, and not to expect a job to fall from the skies.

[Kitty]

Groslard - thanks for some thought provoking comments.  It's such a shame that it isn't easier to set up businesses here.

[suzy]

Would the lack of prospects be the reason why two young French relations of mine have spent years doing law at Montpellier and accountancy at Caen, both to a very high level, one including a year at Keele and one at the University of Sydney for two semesters, now they have both abandoned these highly lucrative (I'd have thought) professions to go to college to teach primary school children.  I think teachers are undervalued and underpaid so good on them, but they are only two of  five young people, I know who have done this recently

Sue

[5-element]

The last I overheard on the subject, was from a rather posh French lady (she runs a big branch of Secours Catholique in my area) talking about her nephew. He fully trained as an engineer and qualified rather brilliantly, but could not find work and is now....packing carrots.

[Joanna]

[quote user="5-element"]The last I overheard on the subject, was from a rather posh French lady (she runs a big branch of Secours Catholique in my area) talking about her nephew. He fully trained as an engineer and qualified rather brilliantly, but could not find work and is now....packing carrots.[/quote]

Yes, I also know someone like that except that he went to a grande ecole and studied a much in demand type of science - (all this from his mother incidentally).  And the reason he is currently working as a cabinet maker in the black?  Not because of lack of job offers but because he flatly refuses to move from Bordeaux and there have never been any jobs of the type he trained for in this region.

A straw poll amongst my children (aged 19, 21 & 24) suggests that every one of their friends whoisn't currently in education and wants to work has a job, albeit not always a perfect one.  All their friends who've done BTS's have  found work too which should encourage those of you who have kids doing BTS's.

As far as the young French girl who claimed you had to do a training course to be a waitress I must respectfully say Rubbish!  There's plenty of work out there, especially in the larger cities, and according to my eldest daughter who supplements her bourse by waitressing conditions in French restaurants are better and the staff are also better paid than restuarants in Scotland (where she worked this summer).

[5-element]

sorry double post

[5-element]

In perhaps the same vein, I just watched part of a TV programme (C-dans l'air) about the high unemployment in the banlieues  amongst the young, and someone sent an SMS which said:

"Je suis Bac+5 en Logistique, et le seul boulot que je trouve, c'est revendeur de cannabis. N'est-ce pas le probleme?"

[Janey]

Hi everyone, haven,t been on here for ages, been seriously ill for the past year, just recovering from cancer. Just happened to glance on the forum and wanted to reply to this one.

We moved here nearly 7 yrs ago now. Our kids were then 9 1/2, 14 and 16. They all went directly into French schools. Like someone else said, we didn,t have English TV so the only English they spoke was at home.

They are now 22, 20 and 16. The 22 yr old is a florist. She found an apprenticeship after leaving lycee, she now has her CAP and has one yr left of her BP to do, jjust taking 1 yr off as has just had a little baby. The 20 yr old again after leaving lycee found an apprenticeship and is now an electrician, has his CAP and BP, now has his own apprentice.

The 16 yr old is in a private lycee doing hairdresing, will leave with her CAP, go on to do her BP and then has plans to open her own shop.

They all chose to go along these routes themselves. They are extremely bright kids but had no interest in going to university, not all kids want to go down that route.We let them do what they chose to do. They all left french schools with good moyens, in the higest numbers.

Were they just lucky, I don,t think so; there are success stories, there are jobs to be had. But it is true that it seems much easier to find manual jobs. They all wanted to work as soon as they left school and thankfully for them it has worked.

Janey

[Russethouse]

Lovely to see you back Janey - [:)]

[Janey]

Thanks Russethouse.[:D]