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French formal educational system consists of three "layers", i.e. elementary school (école élémentaiire, four years, age 6-11), junior secondary school (college, four years, age ll-15), senior secondary school (lycée, three years, age 15-18). The last year of lycée is called class terminale' at the end of which students have to take the baccalaureal examinations. At the tertiary layer we have the universities and grandes école. Universities are more research and theory oriented (except for the recently created institutes universities de technologie (comparable to the Anglo-Saxon Diploma Program or Polytechnical Schools)). The grandes écoles, which are more market oriented institutions, are elit schools that take only few highly selected students. To enter the grande école system, candidates must take two years of preparatory class especially in mathematics, beside modern languages, economics, philosophy, and literature, depending on the kind of school they choose. A sinergy between these two kinds of tertiary education has been developed, mainly in the area of research for doctoral program. Education is one type of "soft power" in international politics. Most Indonesian academicians, scientists, and intellectuals who hold Masters or Doctor's degree come from universities in foreign countries (among others The Netherlands, USA, Britain, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, China, Egypt, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia). They come back with ideas and abstract systems as well as academic behavior they learned in those universities. The first Indonesian student who studied in France at the Sorbonne was Rasjidi, later Professor at the University of indonesia, who defended his thesis on in 1956. There are now no less than 3000 Indonesia alumni from French universities covering about 25 various fields of study. There is a need of continuous and systematic effort to create a synergy among those alumni and with alumni from universities of other Countries. |
