The BBC’s Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield is broadly happy with his children’s French education, but he does have one complaint:
French schools have absolutely no extra-curricular activities.
There are no debating societies, no orchestras, no film clubs, no sports teams, no painting classes, no school newspapers, and no drama, at least none worthy of the name.
This, it seems to me, has enormous implications for society as a whole.
Youngsters who are not exposed to these activities at school are unlikely to spot their own potential. Perhaps as a result in adult life, the associated professions – politics, theatre, journalism – now seem filled by self-replacing elites, which is both undemocratic and uninteresting.
How lucky we are to live in England.
I remember speaking to a teacher in Paris years ago, when I was a guest at his house. Somehow, we got on the topic of entrance exams for film schools.
He, his wife, and another guest–all French–claimed that children of prominent people in the industry should be given a break, an easier exam or no exam, if I remember correctly.
I saw no reason for this favoritism. If anything, such students already had a leg up, so why favor them even more? They argued that, being the children of people already in the industry, they probably had more talent than most other candidates. Or words to that effect. Very strange.
I couldn’t help thinking of this incident when I saw the term “self-replacing elites.”