Moving abroad as a family: check the schools first

Tax systems can be compared in a few hours. Housing can be found, sometimes with difficulty. A place in the right school, at the right level, on the right date, cannot always be found — and nothing replaces it.

The French education network abroad brings together schools with different statuses: directly managed, under agreement, or simply accredited and privately managed. This status determines fees and governance.

Its coverage is very uneven: dense in countries with a long-standing French presence — Morocco, Lebanon, Spain, Germany — and sparse elsewhere, particularly in South-East Asia and the Caribbean.

We do not publish the number of schools, pupil numbers or tuition fees: they vary from school to school and we have not been able to verify them in a consolidated, up-to-date official source.

The practical consequence is that this geography can rule out a destination that would be the best on every other count. It should therefore be checked before any other criterion.

Outside the French network, there are three routes. The English-speaking international school, often even more expensive and of very variable quality. The local system, inexpensive but requiring command of the language. And distance learning.

The local system raises a particular issue in countries where state schools teach in a regional language: Catalan in Catalonia, Valencian in the Valencian Community, Maltese in Malta.

Each route has consequences for the return. A child educated for several years in a local system may have difficulty reintegrating into the French system, particularly at upper secondary level.

This is a parameter that projects underestimate, because it only shows up on return — often several years after the decision that caused it.

Finally, the question of bilingualism deserves to be asked honestly: a French education protects the link with the home system, but it limits linguistic immersion, which is nonetheless one of the reasons most often given for leaving.

School fees, together with housing, are the item that decides an expatriate household's budget. In several destinations, there is no state alternative open to foreigners.

This is notably the case in the Gulf states, where international schooling is expensive and places are limited, and where the absence of employer coverage completely changes the trade-offs of an expatriation.

When the employer covers this cost, the same job in the same city is not worth the same. This coverage must be written into the contract, not left to custom.

School grants exist for French families, awarded by consulates subject to means testing. Applications follow a strict timetable, well ahead of the start of the school year.

A family that moves in the middle of the year often discovers that it has missed the application round, and that it will have to wait a full year.

1. Check the existence and status of schools in the target city before settling on the destination.
2. Contact the schools directly to find out about fees and the availability of places.
3. Ask the consulate about the grant timetable, well in advance.
4. Have any employer coverage written into the contract.
5. Plan ahead for the conditions of return and reintegration into the French system.

One last recommendation, simple and rarely followed: contact families whose children already attend school locally, not just the schools themselves. They can tell you about the real waiting lists, the year groups that are full, staff stability and pupil turnover — all things that no brochure contains and that decide the quality of a child's schooling.