French President: Let’s Get Rid Of Homework In Public Schools

As part of a sweeping package of educational reform proposals, the president of France wants to ban homework.

The France 24 news agency reported on President Francois Hollande’s bid to abolish homework:

“ ‘Education is priority,’ Hollande said at Paris’s Sorbonne University on [October 10]. ‘An education program is, by definition, a societal program. Work should be done at school, rather than at home,’ in order to foster educational equality for those students who do not have support at home, he added.”

Among other reforms is one to increase the school week to four and a half days rather than four. The fact that in France students only go to school for four days a week is a surprise. However, the Washington Post explains that French kids on a four-day week spend more hours in school than in the US or in other industrial countries because they generally start at 8:30 a.m. and stay to 4:30 p.m. or later.

Hollande’s Socialist government is also implementing a temporary 75% tax on the super rich. No one is going to shed a tear for millionaires who have to cough up more to the tax man under this scheme. The disconnect, however, is that the real casualties of class warfare are usually middle class workers who will lose their jobs if/when the wealthy close up shop in France and take their assets and businesses to other countries.

Hollande, who has seen his approval rating take a tumble recently, was elected as the president of France in May.

If you are a student, or a parent of a student, what do you think of the idea of prohibiting homework? Do you think it’s a legitimate reason to ban homework just because some parents are more involved in their kids’ education than others?

[Image credit: Jean-Marc Ayrault]