Education System in France

Government Role

Government Role

Ministry of National

Education • officially called Ministère de

l'Éducation nationale, de la Jeunesse et de la Vie associative

• Regulates all educational programs in France

• Headed by the Minister of National Education

Government Role

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.

Bulletin officiel de l'éducation

nationale, de l'enseignement

supérieur et de la recherche (B.O.)

It is the reference for all French

educators which lists all current

programmes and teaching

directives.

ELIGIBILITY,HIRING & SALARY

OF TEACHERS

Government Role

Primary School & Kindergarten

Teachers

• educated in "Instituts Universitaires de

Formation des Maîtres" (IUFM)

• have usually a "master" (Bac+5)

• Their weekly service is about 28 hours a

week.

• Secondary school teachers who have been

permanently assigned away 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.

• The net pay is from 1400 to 3900 euros

per month.

"Teacher-researchers“

(enseignants-chercheurs)

• they teach classes and conduct research in their

field of expertise with a full tenure

• The net pay for faculty is approximately from

2000 to 8800 (with extra duties) euros per

month.

• The maximum possible net salary for second-

class full professors and chief senior lecturers

(maître de conférence hors classe)—the end of

career status for most full-time teacher-

researchers in French universities—is 3760

Euros a month (2011)

In the overseas departments and territories of France, the school calendar is set by the local recteur.

The major school breaks are:

• All Saints (la Toussaint), two 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.

Teacher Education Training

Teachers are recruited via two

competitive examinations:

1) examination for school teachers

2) examination for secondary and

high school teachers.

Teacher Education Training

National initiative training modules

(MFIN)

The national initiative training

modules are complementary training

courses enabled by the second

paragraphs of articles 4 and 9 of

decree no. 2004-13 of January 5 on the

creation of CAPA-SH and 2CA-SH.

Objective of the MFIN

Their objective is to more

thoroughly develop and reinforce

their knowledge and professional

capacities and/or assist their

capacity to adapt to given

professional circumstances.

Cultural Perspective

The French educational system is

highly centralised

It is divided into three different stages:

primary education, or enseignement

primaire, corresponding to grade school in

the United States; secondary education, or

collège and lycée, corresponding to middle

and high school in the United States; and

higher education (l'université or les

Grandes écoles).

• Since the Jules Ferry laws of 1881-2, named

after the then Minister of Public

Instruction, all state-funded schools,

including universities, are independent from

the (Roman Catholic) Church.

• Secular educational policy has become

critical in recent issues of French

multiculturalism, as in the "affair of the

Islamic headscarf"

“law against the veil or against Islam”

“Affair of the Islamic

Headscarf"

The French law on secularity and

conspicuous religious symbols in

schools bans wearing conspicuous

religious symbols in French public

(i.e. government-operated) primary

and secondary schools.

• "Law #2004-228 of March 15, 2004

concerning, as an application of the principle

of the separation of church and state, the

wearing of symbols or garb which show

religious affiliation in public primary and

secondary schools“

• The bill passed France's national legislature

and was signed into law by President

Jacques Chirac on 15 March 2004 (thus the

technical name is law 2004-228 of 15 March

2004) and came into effect on 2 September

2004, at the beginning of the new school

year.

In order to enforce the law, effective decisions whether certain items are "ostentatious" or not will have to be taken. In order to achieve that:

• the Minister of Education will issue circulaires, or instructions for its services; it seems that large crosses, full hijabs or yarmulkes would be banned, while small symbols such as small Stars of David or crosses in pendants would not be;

• headmasters will have to judge whether particular attire is or not acceptable with respect to the law;

• if necessary, families will go to administrative courts to challenge the school authorities' decision; a final decision may not be reached until the Conseild'État at litigation (supreme administrative court), decides some points of jurisprudence.

• In 2012, the United Nations Human Rights Committee stated that the expulsion of a Sikh pupil from his school in 2008 because of his Sikh turban or keski was a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights signed by France.

• As a consequence of the law, the years following the ban has seen an increasing number of Islamic secondary schools being established, some Muslim female students chose to study at home, and others migrating away from France with their families.