Think Tank

Schooling system in France

Education

How they do that in France?

After I evaluated the 'school voucher' system for Indian condition: a question came to mind: how do they do it there? I strongly believe that India still doesn't want 100% literacy, may be it dreams for it, but is taking no effort to achieve that. To what we could have achieved, see the Chinese literacy level to get a feeling )

I have a friend in France; we are in touch after we met when she came as a consultant in the French MNC I was working with. I have some good memories of her stay; she came without luggage, as Air France missed her luggage, and so she purchased Indian dresses. On her last day of stay, company gave a party in her honour and she arrived in a pink salwaar-kameej; looking great!

I sent her an email asking how the French manage their system, whether primary education is free there. Here is her reply: I hope you too will learn something from this:

Hello Rahul

Yes, in France, school is free in what we call 'public' school and not free (yet very cheap for most) in 'private' schools (I pay 100 euros/month/child). At university, it is about 400 euros/year.

We pay a lot of tax (45 % of income) to achieve that (access to medical system is also almost free). It took us centuries to achieve that and France is among the European countries that has the highest level of tax.

I myself come from a very middle class family yet could follow engineering school with grants at the time. The best engineering school (we call them "grandes �coles" are free (for several centuries) .

I am sure it is a surprise for you

The drawback is that we pay too much tax and that many people take advantages of the system and I would rather have a system not free, yet free for children who make efforts.

The other drawback is that school system is not very good anymore (not enough money) and that in suburbs, it is necessary to pay to complete education if you want to succeed (we have national examinations). So in practicality, the system is decaying.

Yet, I can say that it is one of the most egalitarian educational system I have encountered thru my travels (GB, USA, .). To note that I have also studied in the USA with grants (from the rotary foundation), all tuitions and fees paid, and I could teach to pay the rest. Therefore, it was even easier for me to study there than in France (graduate school, University of Madison-Wisconsin).

I hope these info suit you.

A . F .

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V T

The key word here is �egalitarian�. Talking of schooling, I think we are the most unfortunate to have this system of �good� and �bad� schools. Govt schools, KV, Navodaya Vidyalayas, are almost free in India too. It is the privately owned schools or the DPS variety which make the killing with high fees. I am still to figure out what exactly do they teach to Nursery kids with 5000 Rs a month fees! BTW, France is one of the most class conscious societies in the world. How many of us know that almost all their top people (leaders, academicians etc), all come out from the Grandes Ecole! And absolutely nothing happens outside of Paris, (Quite similar to WB, where nothing happens outside of Kolkata). The key idea here is to make all primary school free and increase the fees for higher education. The fee structure in our Universities is so cheap, it is almost a joke! The gap in the fee structure of the Govt vs Private institutes.

SBV

I really liked the way your friend explained the school system in France (and that too in a few lines). I have done my whole education in France through “public” and “private” schools, and I totally agree with what you friend wrote.
Education in France is compulsory until the age of 16, and making the schools “free” makes it possible. It is true that we have to pay very high taxes, but it’’s for the benefits of all. Socialist country after all !

mp arjaria

Very interesting information.

amr snh

interesting info

Naina

Amazing info! and to think whjat Indian parents have to go through to educate their children and even more pitiful is the grind the children have to go through to acquire a degree.