Thursday, October 11, 2012

School Kalender vs Calendrier

A friend posted the Malaysia's school calender 2013 (in Malay = kalender) in Facebook. That got me curious as I was out of the school system for ages (feeling old yeah).

So school year starts from the 2nd of January to mid November. Here's a summary:
12 weeks of school follows by 1 week of holidays
8 weeks of school follows by 2 weeks holidays
9 weeks of school follows by 1 week of holidays
13 weeks of school follows by 6 weeks of holidays
Total 42 weeks of school and 10 weeks of holidays
There should be one week of holiday for Chinese New Year, (one week of Hari Raya holidays will fall during school holiday in 2013), so total 41 weeks of school.


Now let see the French school calender (in French = calendrier). School starts at the beginning of September and ends at the beginning of July the year after for a long summer holidays. Here's the summary: 8 weeks of school follows by 2 weeks of holidays
6 weeks of school follows by 2 weeks of holidays
7 weeks of school follows by 2 weeks of holidays
6 weeks of school follows by 2 weeks of holidays
9 weeks of school follows by 8 weeks of summer holidays
There will be a lot of holidays in May so we should deduct 1 week here
Total 35 weeks of school with 17 weeks of school holidays.
And, no school on Wednesday for students in kindergarten and primary school.

No judgment here. It is hard to compare the two systems as Malaysians only go to school for half days (5 to 6 hours a day) while the French kids have a longer school day depending on the age. In France there has been discussions on cutting down the school hours per day and resume the Wednesday classes (half day) but some parents disagreed due to after school care issues. The French TV channel M6 is having a show on parents going back to 6ème (first year of high school) and the adults were having hard times living a 9am to 4.30pm school life. Sincerely I couldn't imagine myself being in school for so such a long hour, I will get nuts I guess.

Side note: I didn't understand what was summer holiday when I was at school since there was no summer break in Malaysia.

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