Schools look to Finland for ideas

EDUCATION minister Luc Chatel has visited Finland on a fact-finding mission to seek ideas for how to improve the French school system.

Mr Chatel has met his Finnish counterpart, toured schools and talked to teachers to find out what makes the country's schools successful.

The Finnish system has frequently come top in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's school league table - while France comes 17th out of 34.

Mr Chatel told reporters: "There are a number of practices that I've seen here that could be transposed to France. Our results are not very good - so it's useful to come here and be inspired."

He said he was impressed by the level of autonomy given to individual schools, and the efforts made to tailor education to individual pupils' needs - spotting learning problems early and fixing them.

A recent report by the French auditor, the Cour des Comptes, found social background still has a major impact on success at school, with only 18% of children from the least well-off families passing the Baccalauréat exam, compared with 78.4% from the most privileged backgrounds.

It criticised the policy of making under-performing students repeat years and said more resources should be dedicated to pupils in need of extra help outside of lessons, including homework support.

Mr Chatel is also seeking advice from Finland on how best to recruit and retain staff, and possible changes to the school timetable, which has regularly been criticised in France for being too tiring.

French schools moved to a four-day week in September 2008, with longer working days and Wednesdays off, but it is looking to change this to "improve efficiency and respect a child's rhythm".