Assumptions underlying French secondary education.

Abstract

The rapid changes which have been taking place in secondary education during the last fifteen years have led to a re-examination of the bases of post-primary education in all the major countries of the world. This has been true of France as much as of most Western nations, but the structure of secondary education in France is such that reform is not easy. Reform moves have been numerous and some part of them has been incorporated in the secondary education system. Yet the forces underlying and controlling the present organisation, though frequently questioned, have on the whole not changed greatly. This study is an attempt to discover the basic assumptions of French secondary education, to see to what extent they are at present being challenged, and to examine them in the light of the urgent needs of a nation sure to develop rapidly both technically and intellectually in this second half of the twentieth century.