00:00Where in Europe has the longest school holidays?
00:08French President Emmanuel Macron caused a stir last week by saying
00:12he wanted to reopen the debate on the length of school holidays.
00:15France has longer school holidays than many other countries.
00:19So the question we can ask our children is whether we should
00:22review the school holidays to be able to reduce the number of weeks
00:26that we have to spend in order to learn better.
00:45French students have eight weeks off for the summer, according to Euridice,
00:49the European Commission-funded education information network.
00:53But the data shows that at least 32 other European countries,
00:56or sometimes regions within countries,
00:59have longer summer school holidays than France this year.
01:02Some countries' numbers can differ slightly depending on the region,
01:05grade or individual school.
01:07Those with the most time off are Bulgarian primary school students,
01:11who get between 13 and 15 weeks off,
01:14Italian students, who get between 11 and 14 weeks,
01:17and upper secondary Icelandic students,
01:20who get more than 13 weeks, according to Euridice.
01:23At the bottom end of the table are Germany, with just over six weeks,
01:26the Netherlands and Liechtenstein with six,
01:29and Denmark with just over five.
01:31Teachers in France have accused Macron of making the comments
01:34to distract from the real issues facing schools,
01:38such as a lack of teachers, stagnant pay and poor working conditions.
01:42Some have even claimed that when talking about re-evaluating school holidays,
01:46successive governments have tended to side with the tourism lobby
01:50rather than the interests of teachers and pupils.
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