Hi, Sverker

I live actually in Paris and I can tell you about the demonstrations among
high school students that are going on for some time now in France. Their
motives are linked to the bad situation of the secondary education, at the
lycée level, taht is to say, the three final years of the secondary
education here: the bad state of the buildings, the absence of teachers in
some classes,too many students in each classroom, which forbids group work,
school buildings conceived for 600 students that concentrates some 1200
students nowadays, etc. But these are, in a way, the tree that hiddens the
forest, as we say here. Because there's a big problem with the whole
educational system, since it has been conceived for just an elite, and
since the fight for the democratization of school,and the goal of the last
education minister to take 80% of a generation to the Bac level (that is,
the end of the seven years of secondary education) the number of students
coming from all social classes grew a lot. these students have not the same
preparation as the others, and they come from diverse cultural backgrounds
- so the teachers are not prepared to teach them, they don't know how to
adapt their teaching to these students. Moreover, there's a great need for
a reform of the whole ministry of education,which is so much centralized.
The minister Claude Allègre is trying to make this reform, but the process
is necessarily slow and there's some resistance of the teacher's unions.

It's a very complex situaytion, because students are right in wanting
everything right now - their situation is really bad - but it takes time to
do this kind of reform, to decentralize the whole system. Students are
trying to organize themselves without, so they say, any influence of
political parties - but I think it is almost impossible to do that, as
education is a very political issue. There has been some intents to keep
going the students organization, but the first divisions among them have
already began (Paris x province, for instance). Here, we are hoping that
the fight will go on after the november holidays and that they can better
define their strategies - which are not quite clear, after the
demonstrations.It would be useful if they could organize themselves at
local level and keep fighting to organize their schools at the same time
they contribute to a national fight.

I hope to have answered your questions a little.

Friendly, Angela




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