Quote:
Originally Posted by bilbao58
Years ago when I told my French teacher at a suburban high school outside Houston that I had lived in Canada, she asked if I’d attended a lycée. I didn’t even know what a lycée was at the time. I told her that in suburban Toronto what I had attended was called a “secondary school.”
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The education system is probably pretty much universal and the same everywhere anyway.
Here in France, it goes this way:
1. École maternelle (nursery) meant for little kids aged 3 to 5. Those are not mandatory. People who think their little kids are still better off at home may spare them from it. It is nonetheless recommended to socialize kids as soon as possible.
For instance, if you think it is too soon for your 3-yo kid to attend such a nursery, it is up to you.
2. École (enseignement) primaire/ élémentaire, 1st to 5th grade (elementary school) meant for kids aged 6 to 10. Obviously mandatory.
3. Collège (middle school, 6th to 9th grade) meant for pre-teens aged 11 to 14. Mandatory. That's the 1st stage of so called secondary education.
4. Lycée (high school, 10th to 12th grade) meant for teens aged 15 to 17. 2nd stage of secondary education.
As for teens who don't feel comfortable with or interested in "regular" education, we have alternatives to specialize them in skilled craftsmanship. Make no mistake, there are good careers and money to make there too.
You don't necessarily need a postgraduate degree to be successful in your occupation.
There are cooks who make more money than engineers over here...
5. Université/ Grande École (college/ university) meant for post-secondary students. The higher education system is common to all EU countries and is often refered to as LMD (licence, master, doctorat) here in France.
The French Grandes Écoles are a bit peculiar in that they are highly selective, so teens would better be good at lycée if they want to attend that kind of colleges. They are nonetheless public and mostly funded by taxpayers, thus accessible to all social classes on principle.
That's about it. The only tiny oddity to us when it comes to the US system is that their higher education establishments are usually called 'colleges', while a collège is only a middle school in French.
Otherwise, it is quite strictly the same.