Transcripts For KCSM Taiwan Outlook 20130904

Extracurricular activities, says the government. Will weaning the french off a strict diet of all academics help tomorrows workforce find fulfillment and jobs . We will weigh different models across europe in the france 24 debate. We will also be checking in our media watch segment. At the hour begins in the newsroom. Lets say hello again to claire. These are the headlines. John boehner, Republican House speaker, vows to support brock obama in pushing for a limited strike on a syria. France says they will not go alone. The conflict has now displaced one third of the population. More than 2 million syrians are registered as refugees, with lebanon receiving the highest number. President jacob zuma urged both sides in south africa to find a solution for the sake of the economy. To the u. S. , where barack obama has been backed by the Republican House speaker and the minority leader as he pushes for military action against syria to punish the regime for using chemical weapons. A few days before congress is due to vote on the issue, the u. S. President spoke to congressional leaders, trying to reassure them any strike would be limited and not like afghanistan or iraq. I asked our correspondent in washington if obamas confidence the congress will back him is justified. Up until very recently, it was looking quite misplaced, that confidence. It was by no means clear after the surprise announcement in the rose garden of the white house on saturday that mr. Obama would have the full backing of congress. Last week, it looks Like Washington was on something of a war footing. Lots of noise from congress that they wanted this kind of consultation. John boehner one of those most outspoken about the lack of consultation with congress. He clearly, now much more happy that this boat is going to take place, and as a result is backing mr. Obama. That is a big boost. It looks like the house, rather than the senate, was going to cost him more problems. That, of course, dominated by republicans. Mr. Weiner, a figure who can unite republicans who are more skeptical about boehner, a figure who can unite republicans who are more skeptical. Many republicans belonging to the tea party mistrust mr. Obama completely and do not want to get entangled in overseas action such as this. This may be one way for mr. Obama to, now that mr. Boehner is backing him, to get support. Attention is turning to the senate, which, given that it is dominated by democrats, support is more shored up. If Foreign Relations and he is taking part this tuesday in washington. Secretary john kerry will be among those appearing before the committee, as well as defense secretary chuck hagel. That will be one way for the Obama Administration to try to convince editors as well as the house that the action in syria is necessary. As well as the u. S. , france is pushing for military actions against syria. A day after sharing the governments intelligence on recent attacks in damascus, the french president said his entry would wait for that vte by the u. S. Congress. If it goes against obama, france will not act aloe. Francois hollande said efforts must continue for a diplomatic solution to the war. I have already said france will not act alone. That france could only act within the largest possible coalition. If the u. S. Congresss decision was not positive, france would not act alone. But we would still take responsibility by supporting the democratic opposition in syria in order to find a solution. As france and the u. S. Continue to push for military action against syria, israel announced it carried out a joint missile test with the u. S. In the mediterranean sea. The ministry of defense issued a statement after russia said they detected to Ballistic Missiles being launched toward the Eastern Mediterranean coastline. Our correspondent in jerusalem has more on that test. The Israeli Ministry of defense seems to have been somewhat forced into issuing this short statement admitting that indeed it conducted a military exercise in collaboration with its american counterpart. Launching successfully, what it is calling a newer version of the sparrow missile, part of the interceptor system over the mediterranean, earlier this tuesday morning. The exercise was successfully conducted, according to the statement, which gives no further information as to the timing or the scheduling of this event, which indeed comes at an extremely sensitive time. The u. N. Says more than 2 million syrians syrians are now registered as refugees. The latest u. N. Figures also show that about one third of the population, 7 million, have been displaced by the countrys civil war. Syria is hemorrhaging men, women, and children. That is the warning from the uns Refugee Agency as it sets of millions syrians have been forced from their homes by two and a half years of violence. More than 2 million are now refugees in other countries. The rest, displaced within their own borders. What is appalling is that the first million fled syria during two years. The second million fled syria in six months. The u. N. Says the steady flow of people crossing syrias borders reached an average of 5000 a day. The increasing numbers of refugees are putting a massive strain on neighboring countries. Lebanon has received the brunt of the crowds. Some 700 60,000 registered refugees are now living in a country of just under 5 million. Jordan has taken 515,000. Turkey, 460,000 refugees. Hundreds of thousands in iraq and egypt. Hundreds thousands more are still unregistered. Not just the mere numbers that are alarming. About half the refugees are children, many under the age of 11. Aid agencies have appealed for Massive International support, but warned they have received less than half the funds needed to meet a sick refugee needs. Basic refugee needs. Another wave of attacks in iraq. Reports of at least 36 People Killed across baghdad this tuesday. Officials say half a dozen car bombs went off in predominantly shiite districts. The deadliest blast was in a northern neighborhood where a car bomb in a busy street killed at least nine people. At least eight militants that been killed in the northern Sinai Peninsula according to egypts official news agency, which says helicopter gunships fired rockets that insurgents earlier this tuesday. About 15 were injured in an Ongoing Campaign to rid the area of insurgents who have escalated attacks in the largely lawless region since per hammett president Mohamed Morsi was ousted two months ago. In other news from egypt, one member of morsis Muslim Brotherhood has been sentenced to life in prison by military tribunal. 51 others also charged with assaulting troops during riots last month were handed sentences of 515 years in prison. In another decision, a Court Ordered the closure of four tv stations accused of sympathizing with the brotherhood. Among them, al jazeeras local affiliate. Morsi supporters are due to take to the streets. Tens of thousands of gold miners in south africa have downed tools after wage talks broke down. Workers rejected an offer of a 6. 5 raise. They say they live in poverty while executives command high salaries. Our correspondent joins. What is happening right now . The strike is underway. It [indiscernible] the National Bureau of mines say they called on 80,000 workers to down tools. Between 60 and 106 the mine bosses say they cannot afford this. What they are offering is insignificant. Mine bosses say 6. 5 . This morning, president jacob zuma was appealing to all sides to find a resolution. This adversely affect the gold mining industry, but also the South African economy as a whole. We saw what happened last year, the marikana mine massacre. Five miners were shot dead. Soon after that we saw Investor Confidence down. Also, south africa was affected adversely. The president of the country calling for a speedy resolution, saying south africa can ill afford more. Thank you very much for bringing us uptodate on that strike by gold miners in south africa. That is it from the newsroom. For now. Time to the debate for with francois. The nearly one millionstrong teachers and staff of the French National School System. Summer is over. That army is back on the march. President hollande himself showing up at a school in northern france for a diligent and conducted marseilleise. Exit beforeday school week. Up until now, french pupils enjoyed europes shortest school year. Nine weeks vacation during the summer, 144 days in the classroom total. Those 140 days are action packed. Europes thirdlongest school week, six hours a day. That leaves little time for Extracurricular Activities like sports and the arts. So why are so many teachers and local councils against lengthening the school year and lightening the load . Fewer than 17 of municipalities will implant implement the reform this year. More broadly, as academicsthe fat academicsobsessed france grapples with another reform, which model works best in europe . Amid soaring youth unemployment, what is the best way to prepare todays youth for tomorrows job market . Today in the france 24 debate, is french Education Fund behind . With us to talk about it is National Security secretary of the Teachers Union and a teacher in the, i guess you would call the exurbs. Far from the suburbs of paris. The southwest of the country. The american section of the Primary School in the western parisian suburb of st germain. Peter gumbel, author of france has talent, about the Education System seen inside. The french Political Science institute see aunts sciences po. And thank you for being with us. You can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. Our hashtag, f24debate. First day of school. Do you still get butterflies on the first day of school . Perhaps not butterflies, but im happy when the day is over and everyone is happy and going to the correct class. The children have a good day. The first is special. There is less work, but somehow there is a lot of anxiety that comes with the first day of school. Yes. Making sure everybody shows up. That classes are ready, that books are ready, that the children are happy with their teachers, that they find their friends. A new beginning. Very exciting. Is every year the same . Yes and no. It is like an ocean. The ocean looks the same, but every year it is a little bit different. All. It is not really the same. But there are some things you can predict. One thing that is different is the scrapping of the fourday school week, or at least the attempt to scrap the fourday school week. French kids will go from 144 to 180 days he year in school. The School Calendar is set up for pupils, not for municipalities, not for the teachers, who sometimes have other occupations. They are made for pupils, because that is our mission, our duty. They will be able to go to the museum, be able to have Music Lessons or drama lessons. He also mentioned a sports. This reform is for the kids. Your reaction to what the french president was saying . I think this reform is quite useless, actually. Really . Really. It does not change what is in the school. It does not change the number of hours in the school, the number of hours in the week. It is the same number before. Four days but what about over the school day . Does it mean kids will get out a little earlier in the evening and get home a little earlier . Actually, each school will be different. It is not the same everywhere. You have some pupils who will leave earlier, some earlier on sundays, but not on other days. Sometimes just a longer lunch break. It happens in some schools. Just a longer lunch break. Your municipality, your school district, deciding to put it off for a year. This and reduction of the wednesday morning classes. Why . It is very complicated because you have to find many people in order to keep the pupils and in order to all the activities the president was talking about, you need monitors, counselors for these activities, and you have not found them. We do not find them everywhere because in some places, in big cities it is easier, but in the country, for example, we do not have museums in the country. We do not have all that. In some schools, there will be only just watching the pupils doing nothing. It will happen. They will not have anything interesting, in fact. Barbara, you teach in the city. You are telling us before we went on air that your city decided late in the day not to implement the ring the new rule. St. Germain did a huge study. Many meetings with all the constituencies. Some basic questions were asked of those counselors, if people who would be taking charge of the children, for example, who pays us, how do we get paid, what do we get paid, who was responsible, who picks up the children from school. Do they have to be back for the 4 30 . Many of these questions did not have answers yet. That was only one meeting. I think altogether st. Germain decided it would not be responsible of them to start this in the fall. They need more time. They need more time. Again, this was not what the french president and his Education Minister were saying when they showed up at the classroom and northern france this tuesday. The issue of what to make the Education Ministers said that is at the heart of this reform. It is a Quiet Revolution because we are going to give lots of children act is to activities to which they did not have act as up until now. Access up until now. Only 20 of kids go to day camp, and you have to pay. Now 80 of kids will have better organized Extracurricular Activities. Teachers are working and that on it. The president and the National Education subsidies board has made plans. The government says it has put money aside to pay for those counselors and get all this up and running, to have people, to monitor those extra curve Extracurricular Activities. Our you surprised to hear panelists say they are underwhelmed . The whole thing is a complete shambles. Essentially, you have to back up and look at the problems of the french Education System. In the last 10 years you have seen a growing number of young people leaving School Without the basic skills to survive in the real world. In fact, the International Study shows that as many as 20 of french kids have trouble with really basic reading and writing. The government knows that the School System that appears to be the pride of the country is not performing well. The new minister has come in with a whole agenda of what to do, but changing anything in the system is very difficult. This one. As my colleagues were saying, it is a relatively minor issue compared with him of the bigger problems. Hang on a second. In your own book, you said way too much attention in france, an obsession with math and with grammar. Not a wellrounded education is what you wrote. Do you have more Extracurricular Activities . Here there is a tweet from one viewer saying that the reform sounds a good idea to me. Leaves kids with more energy at the end of the day for other activities. Certainly the engine intention is a good one. Because france and french schools have much less sports, for example, then in the United States or britain. The problem is that the whole process of implementing it is difficult. Rather than having the whole country changing, a very centralized Education System, it is controversial. Some municipalities say they will do it, others that they will not do it, not right away. So you have got issues with staffing. Finally, what is interesting is you are going back it existed in till 2008 in terms of hours, the wednesday morning thing. Used to be saturday morning. And wednesday morning as well. That was abolished in 2008. So what is happening is a rearranging of the deck chairs on the titanic, if you like. The fundamental issues of how do you make the School Curriculum more interesting, how do you get kids more engaged, how do you modernize education those are fundamental issues not being addressed. One of the other ones that will come through is how you train teachers better to stimulate kids. The teacher Training System has completely fallen apart. This government is trying to put it back together again. Much more important than whether you go to School Wednesday morning or not. My colleagues says something very important. French school is often known as being the pupils are being like objects. Regimented. And this is perhaps a good time to make them more subject like, to be more active and more creative. I had that impression. I remember, they would do this and this and this, and have no time for their own reflection or, they did not have any stimulation, that kind of being more active. This kind of debate, the kind peter was talking about a minute ago he was saying how there is an unwillingness to broach this more fundamental debate on, how do you make teachers more in tune with the kids needs, how do you help the children be more engaged with what they are learning. How you teach, who you choose to teach to the pupils, and what you teach. That is the fundamental debate nowadays. I do not think that nowadays french pupils as little soldiers, that is not true. That is a cliche. That is not really not that. The main problem for us, for teachers, i think, is that we, that is perhaps really surprising. We do not have enough time to do what we need to do with the basics. For example, in the Primary School we know we now have to teach Foreign Language very early. But french teachers do not know how to teach a Foreign Language in Primary School. They are not trained to do that. So you took a world where they used to teach french. Now they have to teach english. They do not know how to teach english. So you do not teach english, and you teach less french, for example. So time becomes too short. You need more time, basically, a longer school year . Not exactly. But we need to do the main things first. I think that is the problem. We want our school to do a lot of things. We want our school to do computer training. We wanted to do Foreign Languages. We want it to do a lot of things morals and ethics. Sometimes we just forget that we have to teach them how to read, how to write, and we do not teach them that the good way nowadays. Some people say one of the selling points of the french system is it is clear he disciplinary plur idisciplinary. In britain, you can branch off in secondary and no longer do any science if you want. I am not sure that is the content in Primary School, which is where i have where i spend my time. It has gotten, as my colleague was saying, they have added on and added on and added on. Basically what this reform does is put three hours on wednesday or saturday, but it does not take away three hours in a block. It takes away 45 minutes a day. So that is very chopped up. It will be very difficult for them to do anything constructive with those 45 minutes. You are basically going to lose those three hours. Some children can just go home. They do not want to do an activity. They will not have to do an activity. I understand next year the content is going to be looked at again. They are going to review the programs. So this is a work in progress. Interesting when you read todays french press. It turns on its head a little bit. The leftleaning tabloid libera tion, the frontpage headline, rhythm and blues. The play on words. It was only 2008 when the last government, the conservative, scrapped saturday morning classes. The issue of what to make of those wednesdays is at the heart of the reform. As you see here, the paper saying that in four years School Teachers have gotten used to the fourday week. Women organize their family lives accordingly. This is coming from a leftwing paper, the heart of their readership is School Teachers, so a lot of them both socialist. The idea is that Teachers Want an easy life, and they kind of like the four days so they can have less time to work. I am not sure it is an easy life to be a french teacher nowadays. Of course, they get used to it. They organized themselves. The youngest teachers do not know how it was before. Have never experienced it. They have to go to the school one more day. Sometimes they do not live near the school. They have to take their car, they have to pay for that mama they have to pay for their they have to pay for that, they have to pay for their children. Minor drawbacks, but drawbacks still. Peter gumbel, we get the sense that it seems to be impossible to get what we described as this giant army of School Teachers across the country together into a conversation where you can press forward on the issues you are spelling out. If you look at education pretty much anywhere it is a very conservative institution. People do not like changing. It is very difficult. In britain, there has been a debate about changing School Systems for years and years. The current government once again is trying to change exams. It is competent and very political. Every parent is somehow engaged in this debate. What is different about france is you have an incredibly centralized system. A minister 15 years ago called it a mammoth. A skinned mammoth. He was one of the 30 ministers since 1958 who have been ministers of education. They come and go because it is such a difficult task to change anything. They fail. It will be interesting to see whether the Current Administration achieves anything at all apart from this attempt at reform. Because frances so centralized, you do not have the tools available in other countries where you have a more localized system, local authorities financing the schools, the schools themselves having a lot of say in how they teach, what they teach, the hours they teach. Everything has to happen across the country in one go. How that school should look like is something we should look at when we come back. This is the france 24 debate. Welcome back, or welcome if you are just joining us. Before we resume the debate, a sample of stories we will be following for you at the top of the hour. U. S. President barack obama gets the endorsement of the republican speaker of the house of representatives. John boehner seems supportive of a limited strike on syria. Washington is giving israel Technical Support for a missile test in the mediterranean. Pressure raising the alarm. U. S. Insisting it has nothing to do with syria. Tens of thousands of gold miners were told to down tools in south africa. President zuma making a plea against the strike. Shares in nokia soar on news microsoft will be making a nearly 5. 5 billion takeover of most of its assets. We will have those stories and much more for you at the top of the hour, right here on france 24. Welcome back, or welcome if you are just joining us. First day of school in france. There is a reformed to lengthen the school week, but not necessarily really to lengthen the school year. We have been talking about it, wondering whether french education is falling behind. The National Secretary of the Teachers Union. The principle of the american section Primary School in st. Germain, the western suburbs of paris. Peter gumbel, author of france has got talent. And the france correspondent of a swedish daily. The numbers show the french spend more than the european average on education. 6. 3 of gdp is the sum. Teachers earn 30 last. Where is that 30 less. Where is that money going . s teachers in the School System have a big value in france. Clearly. Teachers are very badly paid. I cannot really understand why it is like that, but salaries in general. What is interesting, the amount of money many parents spend on the children having a home, homework help from other teachers after the school. That is also special for france. All families lives are concentrated around the School System, around what is teaching. It takes such a place in the normal, daily life i think. You were talking before the break about how one Education Minister said it was like skinning a mammoth, which, by the way, killed his political career, that sentence. Where is that money going . Because it is so centralized and the money is passed down to local authorities, it gets stuck in various agencies on the way down. Lots of layers of bureaucracy, all the way down. You have a very difficult system of School Funding here, which is partly decentralized. Some money flows through regions and cities, and some comes straight from the central government. You have all sorts of different people involved in the process to heat up a lot of the funds that are there. But it is certainly true that the french teachers are badly paid. It is also true french teachers have a work regime which is extremely reg lamented, regimented, going back to the 1950s, that limits the number of hours they teach. One of the obstacles of reform is getting more flexibility into the system overall, including into how much teachers teach. This is again, an incredibly hot potato that no government has dared to tackle. Interesting to see whether they try to address that issue. Is that part of the problem . If you does not have money he will not be able to do a lot of things. Education is one of the rare budgets in this government that is on the rise. But he hired more teachers with this budget. So he does not have any budget left up a the more. [laughter] instead of paying them better , he hired more. Yes. But that is useful, actually. We had a lot of we needed to pget some teachers back. A recent poll shows the days when the french revere the village schoolmaster, they are long gone. 42 say they find the School Systems satisfactory. 58 find it unsatisfactory. Also seems to be a growing dissatisfaction with the teachers themselves in that survey, which just came out a couple days ago. How do you today we heard the french president talking about putting kids at the heart of the reform. Do you get a sense that, whether it is the left or the right and power, that there is this tug ofwar going on with teachers . It is very complicated. Certainly where i work the teachers worked very hard and do have the children at the center of their work. Of where they want to go. Both at the Lycee International and at the schools in st. Germain, the teachers are working very, very hard. So i think thats certainly the people around me would be willing to see some changes, but reasonable changes. Is it a fair point that there is a lack of flexibility in how and what the teachers are asked to do . Very segmented and regulated . There has been a lot of add on. The teachers are very stressed. They are asked to do more and more things that they are not really trained to do, and nothing has been taken away. So it does not make for better teaching, better classes, they need to rethink what is really important and the attitude to teachers are going to have in the classroom. Certainly not the teachers i work with, but i am sure there are a lot of teachers. I have met teachers who are quite different about working in schools. But that is everywhere. The latest major oecd survey on the educational system across europe shows ranks the french rather poorly. It has gone way down. Peter gumbel was mentioning it in one of our discussions. Do you sense that standards have slipped . Absolutely. I sense it because i have been working in france in education for over 30 years. What do you blame it on . I blame it on teachers not being really welltrained, and the overload of work they are given. Beyond the rhythm and these other things, i think the teachers really need to be consulted a lot more and the programs need to be revised so that we put art and gym and music into the school day. And not hook it on at the end for 45 minutes. I think this is one of the big differentiation factors in the french system. It is very heavy in a academic way. The subject matter kids learn from an early age is very boring and repetitive in many cases. If you do french grammar, you do endless amounts of parsing of sentences to identify each part of speech. Rather than reading the great works that are out there. It is done in a very nonfun way, a very academic way. It turns off a lot of kids. I think the program is essentially that. What barbara is saying about teacher training, things like positive reinforcement are very important in the teacher Training System. The french teacher training has lagged behind. It has really not worked very well. Actually, the previous government gave up on it and stop the. The question is, how do you train teachers to get kids more interested and involved . You can see on the performances that french kids, because they are turned off, are not performing well. That is an important point. There has been great inflation in france, like elsewhere, compared to 20 years ago. But you still have the adage, 13 is for the students, 17 out of 20 as for the teacher, and 19 out of 20 is forgot. The idea that you can never have a very good grade. Sometimes i give a 20 out of 20. Not such a problem for me. Do colleagues of yours give you dirty looks when you do that . Not at all. I quite disagree. Peter gumbel was talking about the french grammar being unattractive. But actually we have lost that. French grammar, it is not teach taught how it used to be before. We completely ruin it, french grammar. I think that is the main problem. In fact, we had a system that used to work quite well. We tried new methods. We tried many things. Actually, we lost what we had, and we have not found anything better. If i might Say Something about our swedens neighbor country, finland. They still have the old system f teaching grammar in ansystem unattractive way, perhaps, but this is the way how it functions. This is one of the reasons probably why finland is in the top of the School Systems in europe. I think that might be pressing france to go back to some old ways. New method not work, and you grammar did not work. I think they did not adopt that kind of system in finland. This new way of teaching, like we have done in sweden. It did not function at all. People do not even know what is the passe and what is the future and all that in grammar. They do not even know the terms. I am not saying you get rid of teaching grammar, but the way it is taught and the relevance of what you are learning is something that is not obvious if you are in a french school. I had the opportunity to compare my kids with my brothers kids in los angeles. My kids are in french schools. In the states, they are so interested, they love going to school, it is fun. They are doing interesting things. They play music in orchestras, they are learning history in a much more active way, much less passively learning of dates. When it comes to literature, they are reading texts, learning texts, learning to enjoy them. In france, the approach is much more academic. Despite the changes, it is much more rote learning and learning dates. You do not touch the Musical Instruments until you have done two years of music theory. Is it like that in all schools . They go to an ordinary Public School in santa monica. Obviously there are really big problems in the uniteds dates. United states. A big problems in many countries. What is shocking in france is a france has an idea of itself of having an Education System that is really good. The reality which has become evident is that it is failing for a large proportion of kids. 20 of pupils who are unable to read or write well and do basic math tasks at the end of Primary School and at the end of middle school. Peter, if i may, santa monica is a nice place. The problem in the United States is often the Education System depends on property taxes. So if you are from westhampton new york you do not get the same Public Education as you would in the south bronx. If you are in st. Germain you do not get the same education. You are supposed to have. But in practice it is not the case. Is the gap as wide in france . I would say so. The international statistics, which show School Performance based on economic wealth, the gap is as big in the United States as in france. When you think over the last 10 years, the last decade, one of the big initiatives coming from the u. S. , u. S. President george bush signed the no child left behind act, which tied federal funding to testing of pupils and teachers. It raised criticism kids were being taught to pass standardized tests as opposed to actual learning. That is topical today because mexicos president used his first state of the nation address to push an aggressive reform agenda that has teachers up in arms. They are trying to block his plan for mandatory evaluations. The Education Bill would still be approved by the senate. Despite the continued occupation of the main square, and wreak and yet so enrique pena nieto. Is pressing on. With the reform, you will have better teachers. Your children will be in school longer. They will have better education materials. Computers, access to the internet, access to nutritious and healthy food. Schools with adequate installations and i get back to the point we are making about france. You get the sense with what is brewing now in mexico, there is a thing about the state versus the teachers at some point. It can happen. In france, we have that system that teachers are part of the state and i think teachers once to keep that. Actually, if we change that, and sometimes right wing politicians want to do that in france, it will be such a mess and will be horrible, i think. You think it could be a problem . We have a tweet saying that Public Schools in the United States very. Most conservative states have cut recess and rama and liberal arts. Drama and liberal arts. The issues we have seen in the United States, to make schools perform better one of the main in the no child left behind act there is a possibility for schools that are underperforming children in schools that are underperforming to choose another school. The idea that there should be more of a say and more pressure on the teachers and schools to perform. I know that in sweden a reform like this was enacted 10 years ago. Even a voucher system. How is that working . I think that is one of the main problems the right wing government has to deal with right now. People are completely furious. Normally swedish people do not get are not interested in demonstrating on the streets. But people are really furious about the swedish School System, because the government sold a lot of Public Schools for very cheap money to Big Companies. Those Big Companies can earn a lot of on how many pupils they have in the schools. They went in extra step and actually privatize Public Schools . A lot of parents feel their children are, how do you say barcode. And that they are only interested in making money on their children. A lot of those Companies Owning private schools, they are able to not pay taxes. This is a complete mess. What is interesting is there is no line at all of what you should teach, what you should learn. That was very beautiful, in a way, even though it takes too much time in french school, that you can learn ethics and morals in french schools. Absolutely nothing about that is taught anymore in sweden. The basic things are forgotten. It is a total mess right now. I think that only chile and sweden have gone for the system right now. Even the consulate in britain said the swedes have gone too far. One of the great things about the french system is that you have a very strong core of Public Education. The best schools are not the private schools. The best schools are in many instances the Public Schools. The unique schools elite schools like henri iv are the public ones. It is the pride and joy of the french system. The problem is not when you are looking at those schools, which produce a very small elite, but when you are looking at the broad mass of schools, especially in difficult areas, here you had government for 30 years trying to figure out. They are pouring money into what they call the special education zones. The priority education zones. Trying to figure out how to avoid places with a disadvantaged population falling in terms of illiteracy. Which is a very important concern. When you look at the bottom end of the french system, 20 of kids were really struggling, many of them are coming from disadvantaged, poor backgrounds. Many from poor backgrounds. The idea when we look to the east and her german neighbors, is that Vocational Education is certainly much more value in germany than it is in france. Here, the french president , Francois Hollande this monday, putting the accent he did not go so far as to talk about a literacy but he did put the accent on preventing kids from dropping out of school. Dropouts. That is the problem in france. That is what is costing us the most. Every time a child leaves the School System or is failing, we have to pick him back up. We find him waiting in line for a employment benefits. We find him in certain centers that deal with children in trouble. So, by preventing pupils from dropping out we are making an investment. What do you do to prevent dropouts now . What is the top measure you would enact . It is all about children going where they once to go, and where they can succeed. We have a real problem in france with that. We need to have more choice for the children who have the more difficulties. Does that mean more of an accent on Vocational Education . Of course, i think. But we need to be clear about it. We have an exam in professional schools, the baccalaureate, like other schools. With the baccalaureate, those children can go to university because they have the baccalaureate. And they fail miserably in university because they are not made to go to university. So we need to be clear about our system. If you go to vocational school, it is to find a job. You need to be welltrained, well prepared. We have very good teachers in those schools. But more often than not the pupils in front of them do not want to be in this special class doing what you tell them to do. Because they did not go where they wanted to go. You have to think it through, be it for academic or vocational teaching. I want to thank you, just to finish off with a tweet. Grammar was not taught in the u. K. For many years. Some people have no idea what an adverb is. The grass is always greener elsewhere. First day of school i have noticed a lot of kids managed to get a hold of social media. Generally, they are not too happy about going back to school. As you would expect with that generation or those generations, they are tweeting their discontent. You were eager to go to school . We did not have as many people to share our discontent with. This is one photo. People complaining about once you get into college, that is junior high. Backpacks are heavy. Getting heavier and heavier. Le monde has put together a list of instagram photos. They have done it by theme. One of the top themes was that a lot of children are feeling down. As you can see. This person here, i want to cry, scream, vomit, disappear, runaway, etc. La rentree time to go back to school. This guy is sharing his glum this glumness with the world. At the bottom of it they were five hastags that were misspelled. Fini, fatigue, bored, misspelled. At least there is a in which word in there. Maybe he needs to brush up on things. Lots of different stuff like that. Other themes are the fact you have to get up a little earlier. Getting a lot of thumbs down. The six 30 wakeup call as opposed to midday in the hallways. There you go. Parents with their children at the school gates. People happy to find their friends. It is not all bad. The disease in people after the holiday. One man who managed to get himself into a photo shared on social media. We saw that today. An unfortunate facial expression, really. That is a low blow, james. Disappointed. I probably should not be pointing fingers. As we are talking about Francois Hollande, this is where he was, in the north of france. One other team in the news of the theme in the news of the moment, syria. That managed to creep in when not a heckler, just sharing with the president what he felt. [speaking in french] there you go. That was an unfortunate moment. Hollande does not want to engage with that critic of the intervention in syria. It is hard to know what to do in those moments. That heckler reflecting what the majority of french people seem to feel. 64 of french people against a french intervention in syria, according to a poll in le paris ien. Many thanks to our panel once again. Thank you for joining us again for the france 24 debate. Captioned by the National Captioning Institute www. Ncicap. Org.  cautious optimism that the Global Recovery is gathering pace but the oecd warns that the recovery remains uneven. At the Nasdaq Market site in times square new york. More than one dollar a barrel as lawmakers unite for military action in syria