An Interview with Maria Jordan on the French and Venezuelan Education Systems // Part 1: Pre-School

Maria Jordan is an educator and a Spanish teacher in Bordeaux, France

From her experiences growing up in Venezuela and later in life teaching in France, Maria Jordan describes the observations she has made throughout the years on the similarities and differences in the education systems between the two countries.

Beginning with pre-school, Maria describes very slight differences between French and Venezualan education. One main difference was the number of hours spent in and out of the classroom in addition. For example, in France, the school day is much longer than in Venezuela for preschool children. A typical French schedule would include days beginning at 8 am and ending around 4 pm. Due to the long days, there is often one day off in the middle of the week. In contrast, in Venezuela, the days are about half of this length and will usually not go past noon. This leaves more hours out of the classroom, and more time for the children to remain in after school care or “caretake” until their parents have finished work. The use of care is much less common in France due to the greater number of hours children are in the classroom during the day.

In regards to curriculum, pre-school learning in France has a strong focus on the proper pronunciation of words. Pronunciation in the French language is extremely important to successfully communicate because there is often lots of ambiguity within the pronunciation. In Venezuela, with Spanish speaking schools, you don't get that kind of focus on pronunciation. Rather, you learn the pronunciation of Spanish words comes a lot more naturally to children and the words are much less harsh in comparison to French. 

In other aspects of the curriculum, French and Venezuelan schools are very similar with both focusing on teaching shapes and skills like cutting. The ages of children begin school in both countries are also the same as children entering preschool at around 2 or 3 and continuing until the ages of 6 or 7. One difference though is that to continue to primary school in Venezuela it is a requirement to be able to read. This is not the case in France as Maria recounts Maria had trouble as a child reading and was still allowed to continue on to primary school. In France, the requirement to complete pre-school is a general recognition of letters and an introductory level of writing.

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