France: Most Cities Postpone Plan for New School Hours
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Version 0 of 1. Most French cities are in no hurry to introduce a new government plan for an extra half-day of elementary school on Wednesdays and have elected to postpone the change until 2014, when it becomes mandatory, the Education Ministry confirmed Friday. The ministry estimated that the plan would affect fewer than 25 percent of France’s nearly six million public school children ages 3 to 11 in the coming school year. But several large cities, including Paris, will begin the half-day in September. For more than a century, the French school schedule has been punctuated by a midweek break, originally created for catechism studies. The new plan, which has drawn opposition from teachers and parents, calls for three hours of class time on Wednesdays while reducing the regular school day — which typically runs from 8:30 a.m. to at least 4 p.m. — by 45 minutes. |