| French working class education forms a predominantly leftist alliance with the regions | | Print | |
| Renee DAVID AESCHLIMANN | 19.12.2007 | National Affairs - News items [en] | ||||
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On the 6th of December of last year, a partnership agreement was signed in Strasbourg between the Association des Régions de France (ARF - Association of French Regions) and the Associations Educatives Complémentaires de l’Enseignement Public (1) (AECEP – Complementary Educative Associations for Public Education), this with the aim of providing supplementary education for young adults at regional level.
Working class education associations, which had previously maintained extremely close links with state policy via the Ministries of National Education, Youth and Sports, recently formalised previously informal local partnerships for the first time. This agreement ensures that the regions lend their support to community life and to promotional activities organised by volunteers and campaigners. They thus play an active role in ensuring that young people are offered more than mere formal education in the form of different training options and citizenship, and emphasise the importance of the involvement of all the various participants in the education process, namely the state, families and associations. The new-found openness of French state education towards other educative partners, notably educational associations, has been reaffirmed by this agreement, which was signed by Jacques Auxiette, head of education-related issues at the ARF and president of the Loire region. This new partnership constitutes the successful culmination of a process of political and financial severance by the state from campaigns and activities by working class education associations, which, in itself, has contributed to forging new links with the regions, of which twenty-one of the twenty-two in Metropolitan France are now managed by left-wing executives dominated by allegiances to the socialist party. The decentralisation of state education policies, where the emphasis is now placed more strongly on the regions, doubtless encouraged this movement, which is supported by an excellent knowledge of the public sector to which working class education applies, and by the creation of teaching environments marked by the same values, namely the importance of equal opportunities. These eight associations will thus be closely linked to the structure and implementation of regional educative projects aimed at a younger target group. Links with teaching and training establishments will be further reinforced in order to ensure the provision of supplementary education where the focus is firmly placed on culture, society and citizenship. Renée DAVID AESCHLIMANN (1) The AECEP brings together eight major French working class education associations: the PEP (Pupilles de l’enseignement public – Pupils in State Education), the CEMEA (Centres d’entraînement aux méthodes d’éducation active – Active Education Training Centres), La Ligue de l’enseignement (the Teaching League), theOCCE (Office central de la coopération à l’école - Central Office for Cooperations in Schools), the JPA (La Jeunesse au Plein Air – youth organisation), the EEDF (Eclaireuses et éclaireurs de France – French Guiding Association), the FOEVEN (Fédération des œuvres éducatives et de vacances de l’Education nationale – Federation of Educative Works and Vacancies within National Education) and the FRANCAS (Francs et franches camarades – educational campaigning association). |
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