Collége

Collége 

an educational institution in France, Belgium, the French-speaking cantons of Switzerland, and a number of countries in Africa and Asia that were formerly part of the French colonial empire. In France the first collèges were founded in the Middle Ages under the auspices of universities. All collèges were closed during the Great French Revolution. In 1808 the name “collège” was given to secondary schools either financed by the local authorities or privately owned, whereas secondary schools supported by the national government were called lycées.

Prior to 1959, the French collège was an academic secondary school with the same status as a lycée: they had an equal number of grades and the same departments and curricula. Under the reforms introduced in 1959, the lycée became the sole academic secondary school in France. At the same time, general collèges (collèges d’enseignement général) were established—secondary schools offering a four-year course of study (upon completion of a five-year elementary school), whose graduates could enroll in specialized secondary schools or in the upper grades of a lycée. The collèges of secondary education created in 1963 for children between the ages of 11 and 15 combine grades 6 through 9 of the lycée, the grades of the general collège, and the upper grades of the primary school.

The collèges in African and Asian countries, including Algeria, Morocco, Laos, and Cambodia, are generally lower secondary schools. In Belgium collèges are secondary schools for girls.