Back to basics

Every so often it seems, a new government comes into power and starts looking around for ways to change society and quite often one of its first impulses is to begin with what it considers to be “fixing” the education system.

When he took office last May, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, immediately charged his minister of higher education, Valérie Pécresse, with responsibility for overhauling the country’s overstretched university system.

Now it’s the turn of primary and secondary schools with that most ominous of phrases so beloved of those who think they know what’s right, “back to basics”.

Sarkozy’s promised objective is by 2012 to have cut by a third the 15 per cent of children who cannot read or write by the time they enter secondary education. And he’s hoping his education minister, Xavier Darcos, will be able to deliver.

So after months of behind-the-scenes study, Darcos, announced this week a detailed outline of just what changes schoolchildren can expect from the beginning of the next academic year in the autumn.

Priority on the syllabus will be given to French and maths, both of which get a mighty boost in the number of hours allocated each week.

Darcos insists that if children can master both these subjects during their first years at school, it’ll provide the basis for making learning in other areas later on a great deal easier.

So from the age of 6, children will be taught 10 hours of French a week, with the emphasis being on a return to the old-fashioned approach of learning by rote, for spelling, grammar and vocabulary. In addition, they’ll get five hours of maths a week to start off with, and once again it’s a blast from the past with mental arithmetic being given precedence.

As far as the teaching of history is concerned, Darcos wants to see a return to learning dates, times and historical figures. He maintains that the methods used up until now have not produced the right results, and children are simply out of touch with important past events

But the major teachers’ union has criticised these proposals as heralding a move away from children actually understanding what they’re learning in favour of encouraging them to repeat almost parrot-fashion what they’re being taught.

The union has also urged Darcos to look again at his own arithmetic, which they claim just doesn’t add up. He plans to scrap schooling on Saturdays thereby reducing the time spent in the classroom to 24 hours a week.

At the same time he’s going to increase to four, the number of hours of sport, and maintain one and a half hours each week for foreign languages. Once the new scheduling for French and maths have been factored in it’ll leave just three and a half hours a week for that new history syllabus, as well as geography, art, science, music and civic and moral education.

Either teachers will have to become magicians or children will have to learn at a breakneck speed. Or both.

And ah yes, civic and moral education. Now there’s a wonderful Sarkozy-inspired term to grapple with, designed presumably to make French children model citizens.

It means that from the age of eight children must know the values of the French republic, the meaning of the flag and the symbol of the statue of Marianne as well as the national anthem. They’ll also learn about hygiene, the risks of the Internet and be taught the “fundamentals” of morals, which include the rules of politeness and behaviour.

A year later they’ll be made aware of sustainable development and start having to master the intricacies of the European Union (heaven help them) – its anthem, flag and members. And of course by the time they’re 10, they’ll be ready to “adopt” one of the 11,000 French children killed in the holocaust.

By anyone’s standards that’s a heck of a lot to pack into a shortened school week. And don’t think teachers are being let off the hook either. They’ll be subjected to assessments every two years, with a legion of inspectors grading them on their ability to teach and have the class progress as a whole.

The premise of much of the hullabaloo over the need for reform in France is Sarkozy’s conviction that the country’s education system is somehow failing its children. But in fact a quick international comparison – for what it’s worth – shows that France is faring no better, and no worse than many of its European neighbours.

The three-year Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) - a worldwide test of 15 and 16-year-olds educational performances - ranked France in 25th place in 2006 – a slip of three notches. That makes the country an average “student”. But there again so are both the UK and Germany.