Hi from France! Since this month’s theme is education, I’ll be talking about its general aspects for France.
In France, education is free and of good quality. Here, most children go to public school. Although there are private schools, they don’t necessarily provide a better education than public schools.
School here is composed of four main stages: “maternelle” (kindergarten), “école primaire” (elementary school), “collège” (middle school) and “lycée” (high school). The French high school is composed of only three years which means I’m in the first year and in two years I will be going to a university. Here, classes are usually from 8 am to 5 pm, but it can change depending on the days on your schedule. We take all sorts of classes, such as physics, chemistry, history, geography, math, French, English, economics, technology, and a second language. My favorite subject is economics. Although I am not learning a second language, I am in an international school for people that speak different languages at a native level so I also take eight hours of Spanish classes: four for history and four for literature.
Here, universities are basically free and to get accepted you have to have good grades in your last two years of high school, so it can be very easy to get in compared to the US.
As for final exams, I don’t have any this year, but I did have a lot of exams throughout the school year!
Good luck to those who have exams!
- Ines Latrille - France (near Paris)