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PARIS — For the second time in three weeks, primary school teachers here are on strike Tuesday, protesting a plan by the new French government to modify the rhythm of the school week for the country’s youngest pupils.

As my article today explains, most French public preschools and elementary schools are open just four days a week — a vestige of a long-ago era when one day a week was meant to be devoted to the religious teachings of the Roman Catholic church.

Even as France has become more secular — and multicultural — over the decades, this midweek break has remained a largely permanent fixture of life here for families with kids under 12 (middle and high schoolers routinely have class five days a week). Many stay-at-home parents of means — and not a few doting grandparents — cherish this day as one for special outings or just to follow their little one’s progress at ballet or judo lessons. But for children in poorer urban or rural areas, Wednesday can often be a blur of TV shows, video games or otherwise unstructured and possibly unsupervised hours.

As a full-time working parent I usually find myself dreading the annual September scramble to arrange a slate of Wednesday activities and childcare for my kids, aged 8 and 4. I also confess to a mix of guilt and relief that they are cooped up at school for eight hours a day — at no cost to me — for the rest of the week. When my exhausted third-grader struggles to complete his homework in the evenings, though, I long for a more humane alternative.

Is that what the French reform will achieve? Class time is set to be shortened by 45 minutes a day on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, but, so as not to leave parents on the hook for finding extra after-school childcare, kids will be kept on school grounds until at least 4:30 p.m., where they will ostensibly be taking advantage of a slate of new city-funded extracurricular activities.

The reform puts the onus on municipalities to finance these activities across France. Those who implement the reform in 2013 can receive aid from a €250 million fund set aside from the national budget. After this year, only schools in disadvantaged areas will have access to federal funds.

Meanwhile, a half-day of classes will be added on Wednesday, which still leaves parents like me in search of a solution for the rest of that day.

Whether any of this will affect academic performance is still unclear. In a 2009 assessment of high school students in 65 countries by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, France ranked below a number of countries where children spend significantly less time at school, including Finland, South Korea and Japan, but also below several countries where the average number of class hours per year is higher, such as the United States and Canada.

How is the school week organized in your country? Do you think shorter days and longer weeks are more conducive to learning, or do schoolchildren benefit from having a midweek break?

