Are private Catholic schools in France only for the rich?
Pupils proceed to their classroom at the private Catholic school Institut Sainte-Genevieve in Paris. Photo AFP, Philippe Lopez
Western Europe
Are private schools becoming too elitist? The question is debated again in France. At the same time, the Minister of Education wants to strengthen social and school diversity.
Minister Pap Ndiaye is already in contact with the General Secretariat of Catholic Education. Catholic schools are accused of threatening social and school diversity because they would be too elitist, La Croix writes.
Richer
Recently, statistics seemed to show that private schools are more likely to accept pupils from parents who are wealthier than the average French population that enrols their children in public schools.
The statistics measure the social positioning of a school by ranking its IPS. The higher a school ranks, the lower its diversity. At the top of the list, there are mainly private schools, while public schools rank lowest, La Croix writes.
Academic success
However, teacher and columnist Lisa Kamen-Hirsig is critical of the ranking. She thinks it is evident that children of parents who are highly educated will have more academic success. “A student whose mother is a teacher and whose father is an engineer is awarded a generous 179 [academic score] while another, whose father did not wish to provide information on his profession and whose mother is unemployed, hardly gets a 37. Does this mean one has five times more chances of succeeding in his studies than the other? Or win five times more? Or encounter five times fewer difficulties?” she writes in her column in Le Figaro.
According to Kamen-Hirsig, the Education Minister realises that he can never convince rich parents to enrol their children in public schools when they can afford a much better private one. Therefore, “Pap Ndiaye has no other option but to threaten private establishments to no longer pay them their subsidies”, she argues.
And that is precisely the problem, the teacher argues. “The minister knows these measures are detrimental to freedom, but that obviously does not bother him. Nothing stops egalitarianism”, she fumes.
Thin evidence
At the same time, the evidence of Catholic schools being elitist is thin, Kamen-Hirsig writes. She points out that Catholic schools are already increasing their diversity by accepting pupils with different faiths, students who do not succeed greatly academically, and disabled pupils.
Historian Philippe Portier has a different explanation for why the average student in Catholic schools is more prosperous than those in public schools. He argues that Catholicism is more prominent among richer people than poorer inhabitants. “As France became de-Christianised, Catholicism tightened in wealthy urban areas with higher than average cultural baggage”, he says to La Croix. “The working classes, turning away from the Church, have also moved away from the private school because this choice remains very much linked to the values one wishes to transmit to his or her children.”
On May 11, Minister Pap Ndiaye will announce measures to promote social diversity and diversity at schools.
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