Last week the Foothills School Division welcomed a visitor from New Caledonia.

Laurene Ben Lahoussine teaches high school physics and chemistry on the French island in the South Pacific. She was granted the opportunity to learn about education in Canada and spent three weeks in Toronto before coming to Foothills Composite High School in Okotoks for a week through the embassy in Ottawa and Lesley Doell the French immersion facilitator for FSD.

Lahoussine says the education system here differs greatly from New Caledonia.

"It's more free, students can choose what they want to do, in the French system they can't. If they want to do the work of a scientist they have to choose sciences and they can't choose anything else. Here, students can choose."

According to Lahoussine, students in the French system have to choose a career path at the end of the Grade 10 then take courses for the rest of their schooling that focus on that specialty.

When comparing between Canada and New Caledonia she says she believes the curriculum back home is more up to date.

"The French system is more something we use now in industry, here in chemistry for example you're learning thermodynamics, we didn't because it's an old chemistry science so we did something like spectroscopy, each industry uses it now so it's more modern."

Lahoussine adds the school days in Alberta are shorter with only about six hours of class time compared to New Caledonia where classes run from about 7 a.m.- 5 p.m.