The French educational system is highly centralised, organised, and ramified. It is divided into three stages:
* primary education (enseignement primaire);
* secondary education (enseignement secondaire);
* tertiary or college education (enseignement supérieur)

Primary and secondary education is predominantly public (private schools also exist, in particular a strong nationwide network of primary and secondary Catholic education), while tertiary education has both public and private elements.

History

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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 free of charge and secular (laïc).

Organization

All educational programs 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 August 2005, the Minister is Gilles de Robien.

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 curricula is the same for all French students in a given grade, in public and semi-public (or 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 programs and teaching directives. It is amended many times every year.

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

Académie system

The French territory is divided into 35 académies, 26 of which are located in mainland France and 9 in French overseas territories. One académie often spans a few départements, the most commonly used administrative unit in France. Académies also cover French schools located abroad so that the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in London, for example, falls under the jurisdiction of the Lille académie.

The académie headquarters (termed rectorat) is usually located in the largest city in the concerned territory. It is headed by a recteur. The main responsibility of the académie is to manage personnel and state budgets pertaining to the education system. It serves as a link between regional specificities and the centralised governing body in Paris. It ensures the implementation of the official educational programs produced by the Ministry.

At one level down in the national education hierarchy, each département also has its own inspection académique, headed by an inspecteur d'académie.

Note that the académie, as an education-based territorial unit, has no relation with l'Académie française, the authoritative body concerning the French language.

School calendar

French secondary education is divided into two schools:
* the collège (somewhat comparable to U.S. junior high) for the first four years directly following primary school;
* the lycée (roughly comparable to a U.S. high school) for the next three years.

The completion of secondary studies leads to the baccalauréat.

Baccalauréat

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. The term baccalauréat refers to the diploma and the examinations themselves. It is comparable to British A-Levels, American SATs, the Irish Leaving Certificate, Australia's Higher School Certificate and German Abitur.

Most students sit for the baccalauréat général which is divided into 3 streams of study, called séries. The série scientifique (S) is concerned with the natural sciences, physics or mathematics (another stream exist, called série scientifique sciences de l'ingénieur (SSI), a série scientifique baccalauréat with two more specializations, génie électrique and génie mécanique.), the série économique et sociale (ES) with economics and social sciences, and the série littéraire (L) focuses on French and foreign languages and philosophy. However, these séries are not exactly specializations and every bac-possessor can integrate every public university.

There is also the baccalauréat technologique and baccalauréat professionel.

Tertiary education

Peculiarities

A striking trait of higher education in France, compared to other countries, is the small size and multiplicity of establishments, each specialised in a more or less broad spectrum of disciplines. A middle-sized French city, such as Grenoble or Nancy, may have 2 or 3 universities (for instance: science / humanities), and also a number of engineering and other specialised higher education establishments. For instance, in Paris and suburbs, there are 13 universities, most of which are specialised on one area or the other, and a large number of smaller institutions.

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 large variety of courses.

In engineering schools such as École polytechnique, it is not uncommon that a large share of the teaching staff is not made up of permanent professors, but of part-time professors hired to do teaching only. These part-time professors are generally hired from neighbouring universities, research institutes, or industry.

Another originality 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. It is also fairly common that research staff teach some graduate classes, for instance. However, this research staff will not be counted as part of the normal academic staff of the university.

These traits can cause international university rankings to underestimate French universities due to the criteria used.

Another characteristic is the low tuition costs. Since higher education is paid by the French taxpayers, the prices are very low: the tuition varies from 150 € to 400 € depending on the university and the different levels of education (licence, master, doctorat). One can therefore get a Master's degree (in 5 years) for about 750-2,000 €. Additionally, students from low-income families can apply for scholarships, paying symbolic sums for tuition or manuals, and even getting a monthly stipend.
However the price for tuition in engineering schools can reach 1000 € a year, and some business schools charge up to 7000 € a year.

Health insurance for students is about the same price as the tuition, so only the living costs and books expenses have to be added. This can explain the very low rate of people under 25 years old who are on the job market in France.

Universities in France

The public universities in France are named after the city where they are found, followed by a number if there are several. Paris, for example, has thirteen universities, labeled Paris I to XIII.
The French system is currently undergoing a major 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.

Grandes écoles & classes préparatoires (CPGE)

The Grandes écoles of France are higher education establishments outside the mainstream framework of the public universities. They are generally focused on a single subject area, such as engineering, have a moderate size, and are often quite selective in their admission of students. They are widely regarded as prestigious, and traditionally have produced most of France's scientists and executives.

The classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles (CPGE) is a prep course with the main goal of training students for enrollment in a Grande École (and especially an engineering school, see : Grandes écoles). Admission to the CPGE is very competitive and is usually based on performance during the last two years of high school, called Première and Terminale. The CPGE are located within high schools but pertain to tertiary education, which means that each student must have passed successfully their Baccalauréat (or equivalent) to be admitted in CPGE. Each CPGE receives the files of hundreds of applicants worldwide every year during April and May, and selects its new students under its own criteria (mostly excellency). 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. CPGE programs have a nominal duration of two years, but the second year is sometimes repeated once, mostly in the scientific sections, where the student gets then the status of cinq demi ("five halves"), for he was only a trois demi ("three halves") during his first second year. The explanation behind those names is that the most coveted engineering school is the Ecole Polytechnique, nicknamed the X (as the mathematical unknown). In French, a student is said to integrate a school when they are allowed to enroll in it. A student is called a 3/2 if he integrates the Ecole Polytechnique between his first and second year of preparatory class since the integral of x from 1 to 2 is 3/2. The same idea is valid for "cinq demi", since the integral of x from 2 to 3 is 5/2. Students enrolled in their second second-year are also called "carrés" (squares), and a few turn to "cubes" for a third and final second-year. These terms probably stem from repeated attempts at applying to "X" (Polytechnique), yielding $x^2$ and $x^3$. Some ambitious professors encourage their top students to eschew admittance to other prestigious schools in order to try their hand at X one more time...

The most known CPGEs are certainly the scientific ones, which can only be accessed by scientific Bacheliers. Scientific CPGE are called either MP ("Mathematics and Physics") or PC ("Physics and Chemistry"), etc. First year CPGE students are called the 'Math Sup' (Sup for "Supérieures", superior in French, meaning post-high school), and second years 'Math Spé' (Spés standing for "Spéciales", special in French). 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 programmation using the Pascal or CaML programming languages, as a practical work).

There are also CPGE which are focused on economics (known as épiciers, who prepare the admission in business schools) and humanities. These latter are known as "Prépa HEC" and are split in two parts ("prépa HEC spe mathematics" , generally for those who gratuated the baccalaureat S and "prépa HEC spe éco" , for those who were in the economics section in the lycée.)

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 in these classes are the Écoles Normales Supérieures.

The amount of work required of the students is exceptionally high. In addition to class time, 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 -cf. supra, khâgne) where? needs editing . The so called 'colles' are unique to French academic education in CPGEs. They consist of oral examinations twice a week. 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 a bit different. They are taken every trimester in every subject. Students have one hour to prepare a mini-presentation that takes the form of a 'dissertation' (in history, philosophy...) 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 inasmuch 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.

See also

* Minister of National Education (France)
* Agence pour l'Enseignement Français à l'Etranger
* Equivalencies'': Comparing American and French degrees

France