As part of the ministerial project “For a school of trust”, the government has chosen to lower the age of compulsory education to 3 years, instead of 6 years. The two objectives targeted by this change in school law is to strengthen the educational importance of nursery school in the French education system and to act through pre-elementary education on inequalities from an early age.

A little history

At the end of the XNUMXth century, the obligation of instruction was one of the founding acts of the Republic. According to republican principles, whatever their social condition, every child has the right to receive a quality education, with a common basis of identical education for all and delivered free of charge by the National Education.

This obligation of instruction was put in place in order to fight against social inequalities because previously only wealthy families had the means to send their children to private schools, often run by religious, or to employ a tutor (a home teacher). Children from poor families had to work, look after their brothers and sisters, household chores.

Until 2019, education laws had therefore placed parents in the obligation to send their children to school from the age of 6, until the age of 16. For girls and boys, this saved girls from being married too young and boys from working in factories from an early age.

The law for a School of Confidence was promulgated in the Official Journal on July 28, 2019. It leads to a lowering of compulsory education at the age of 3, and a training obligation until the age of 18 years.

Compulsory education at 3 years old confirms, on the one hand, the educational importance of nursery school in the French education system. It also strengthens the decisive role of pre-primary education in reducing inequalities from an early age.

In fact, the enrollment rate in kindergartens was already around 98%, but only a part of the youngest, around half, stayed there all day.

The rule is now that even the small sections are all accommodated the whole day with of course a moment and a dedicated quiet place for the afternoon nap, obligatory to meet their physiological needs.

The parents’ federation Peep as well as many unions then raised the question of the conditions for the implementation of the law. “Schools do not all have the place to make all the little ones sleep at the same time”. Especially since the classes are more and more busy, more than 30 as in high school ”.

The impact of the Covid

With the special health conditions due to Covid, the application of this law, which already took into account a certain flexibility, has become difficult to implement. The National Education therefore authorizes “an adjustment of the time spent in school for children attending small section”.

At the start of the school year, parents of children entering the first year of kindergarten were therefore able to specify whether they wanted to leave their child the whole day, or only the morning to allow them to take a nap in the comfort of their home. This choice is only relative, because many parents work all day and do not have the opportunity to entrust their child to their family.

This flexibility of presence for the little ones must however be validated by the district inspector, after consulting the principal. But in real life, a dialogue between teachers and parents makes it possible to find a rhythm in accordance with the child’s needs and appeals to common sense.

For this start of the 2020 school year, three main changes have therefore been brought about by this law:

Obligation d’instruction

All children aged 3 to 5 are now enrolled in a nursery school or class, public or private, unless their parents or legal guardians declare that they are educating them as a family. In this case, checks are carried out by the inspectors to ensure that the instruction is given.

Attendance

An obligation to be present during school hours. This obligation can be relaxed for a child in a small nursery school section, if the persons responsible for the child so request.

A decree specifies the conditions under which this relaxation is possible. Instructions were given to the national education services to respond quickly to families who would make a request to adapt their child’s schooling time.

Schooling in kindergartens

Article 18 of the law authorizes, by way of derogation, the instruction of a child from 3 to 6 years old in a kindergarten.

Until the school year 2023-2024, an enrollment in a kindergarten is considered to comply with the obligation of instruction after prior declaration of the persons responsible for the child to the competent authority.

Educational checks will be carried out to ensure compliance with the instruction obligation.