French High Schools Abroad Week: sports as a common thread

France is the country with the biggest, most well-structured education network abroad, in 2023, a strong French presence is registered in 138 countries, with 580 schools and 391 000 students going to school from kindergarten to high school. The French Education Abroad Network is made of primary, secondary and high schools, all of which certified by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The ministry relays that the rate of students obtaining the baccalauréat fluctuates between 95% and 99% depending on the year and specifies that among the students “more than half are from the host country, 40% are French and 10% come from other countries”.

Key participants to French external action

The AEFE says that the main focus of these French High School Weeks, organized annually, is to have French education spread in order to “get stronger, to be nurtured and known in France as well as outside of France”. The point is to rally around “the ambition to develop French education abroad”, as the President emphasized in 2018, even wishing to double the number of students attending these schools by 2030.

The Ministry of Education points that the French Education Abroad Network, uniquely widespread and dense, is “one of the main participants ensuring French external action”. Indeed, every year, the network grows bigger, “more and more French families are living abroad, families from the host countries as well as families from other countries want to benefit from the network”. Understandably so says the Ministry of Education, this network owes its success to “the quality of the courses offered, partly adapted to the culture of the host countries where the institutions are located”, and to “the reputation of the French educational model, as well as to the performance of its students from all nationalities and its consistency on a global scale”.

A key moment in this year dedicated to sports

It is amid this context of expansion and this focus on sports that the French High Schools Abroad Week seventh edition will take place, it is one of the milestones of this year dedicated to sport, on the eve of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic games.

Learn, Commit, Enjoy: sports for everyone, it is precisely this year’s theme, it participates to a larger trend. The AEFE explains that sports are “a guiding thread within the French Education Abroad Network for the whole 2023-2024 school year”. In reference to “Olympic values such as excellence, friendship, respect, fairness and courage”, the AEFE wishes to “embrace the educative heritage of the Olympics” and use it to “strengthen durably the sport promoting policies in the French institutions abroad”. Therefore, after the National Day of Sport at School, which took place last September, an occasion to rally around promoting sports for everyone, the new French High Schools Abroad Week, should be a key moment in this year dedicated to sport.

In the spirit of inclusion

In concrete terms, the AEFE works along three main guide lines to spearhead its actions during this week, guide lines directly inspired by the theme of the week:

• Learn: physical education and sports at school allow students to acquire skills and specific knowledge, it fosters “the acquisition of cross-disciplinary skills, a key factor to succeed, central to learning civic values”.
• Commit: according to the AEFE, the verb “calls for the obvious commitment any athlete must exert in their practice, through values such as effort, determination and        perseverance”. It also focuses on “the beneficial aspect of commitment for the group”, allowing each and everyone “to handle social responsibilities, to experience cohesion and implication as part of a project, thus making civic values come to life”.
• Enjoy: seen as a key component to a healthy and fulfilling life, the AEFE assures “sport fosters harmonious growth and allows the experience of thrilling moments”.

Finally, quoting the slogan Sports for everyone, the agency insists that “it is all in the spirit of inclusion that the practice of sports is envisioned throughout the French Education Abroad Network, for kids of all ages, girls and boys, each and every student however different they are”. A narrative map of events programmed in the schools throughout the world is available on the website.