Schools & Education in Pointe-à-Pitre

Excluded For Distance

• Collège les Roches Gravées (Trois-Rivières) and the two La Luciole Montessori bilingual campuses (Saint-François and Sainte-Rose) are genuine bilingual/international-facing options in Guadeloupe but are located well outside the Pointe-à-Pitre area (30-40+ minutes away), so they are not listed as options for someone based in Pointe-à-Pitre.

International Bilingual School Landscape

Pointe-à-Pitre and greater Guadeloupe have only a handful of true international/bilingual options rather than a large international-school market. My First Academy is a bilingual school in Guadeloupe offering French-English education from preschool to secondary. Expat forum users also reference a small English/bilingual school known as LISE and another called Génie en Herbe, but these are word-of-mouth referrals rather than independently documented institutions, so families should verify current status, accreditation and capacity directly before relying on them.

Enrollment Process Public French School Alternative

As a fallback (and the default for most local and many expat families given the limited private/bilingual capacity), Guadeloupe's public schools follow the standard French system: Guadeloupe's education system follows that of France and instruction is usually in French; education is free and compulsory, and children enroll at école primaire at age 6, after an optional period at pre-primary école maternelle. Registration for public school is done through the child's local mairie (town hall) based on the family's residential address (school catchment/'carte scolaire'), not through a competitive admissions process — but families arriving mid-year should register with the mairie as soon as they have a fixed address, since assignment is address-based and can take a few weeks to process.

Summary

Homeschooling ('instruction en famille' / IEF) is legal nationwide in France, including Guadeloupe, but is no longer a simple declared right — since a 2022 reform it requires prior government authorization. You must request permission from the Dasen (the Academic Director of National Education Services) of your department, and the grounds on which you can obtain this authorization are limited. A child residing in France may receive education in the family, regardless of nationality.

Legal Status

Fully legal and regulated

Core Subjects Required

They must provide instruction in the core subjects: French, mathematics, history, geography, civics, science, and physical education.

Oversight After Approval

Once approved, families are subject to ongoing checks. An academy inspector carries out an individual check of the child at least once a year, and the inspector may be assisted by a school psychologist. The check can take place without you being informed in advance.

Application Window And Process

You must submit your request to the Dasen between 1 March and 31 May included, before the start of the school year. You can send it outside this period if the reasons for your request appeared after 31 May before the start of the school year, but in that case you have to justify it. The application must be renewed every year unless the authorization has been granted for more than 1 year. The Dasen notifies its decision within 2 months of receipt of the complete file.

Approved Reasons

Authorization is only granted under a narrow set of categories: the child's health/disability, intensive sports or artistic training, family travel/geographic remoteness, or a fourth, more discretionary catch-all category requiring a serious educational project — a general preference for home education or 'educational philosophy' alone is frequently refused.

Foreign Family Notes

Non-EU foreign nationals who hold a valid VLS-TS or carte de séjour are subject to the same authorization requirements and inspection regime as French families; nationality does not provide an exemption from French compulsory education law. Families on a visa should also be aware that French visa applications require proof of school enrollment for children of school age, so a homeschool authorization approval (not just an application in progress) is typically what's needed to satisfy that.

Exists

Yes

Note

These Guadeloupe-specific IEF (instruction en famille) groups are listed independently across multiple French homeschooling resource/directory sites that catalog regional support groups department-by-department, which is a reasonable indicator they are genuinely active local communities rather than a single unverified blog claim — though as informal Facebook groups their current activity level and membership size were not independently confirmed by this research.