With the reform of the baccalaureate and the written tests of specialty lessons which are held in March, many final year students seem to lack motivation or decide not to come to class anymore.
The hour of small calculations has arrived for the students of Terminale… And at the end of the courses, many of them confirm that rigor is no longer required since the beginning of the third quarter. “We’re a little pre-holiday,” says Léa, a high school student from Toulouse, who continues to go to class “because her parents oblige her”. Under a bus shelter to protect themselves from the rain, she and her group of friends take the bus to school every day. “It’s true that before we were a little more on the bus”, jokes one of the high school students present. Beyond absenteeism which is not alarming, the small group admits that the problem is motivation.
“As we have already passed our specialty subjects, it is difficult to motivate ourselves”, confirms Quentin who hurries to return at the end of the course. “I’m going to play Play,” he laughs when asked if he’s going to revise. And for good reason: since the baccalaureate reform, a large part of the assessment is based on continuous assessment and specialty tests (one third of the final grade). The latter having already passed since March, many students are looking forward to the coming weeks with serenity.
Only two events in June
Chloé, a final year student in another high school in the Pink City, recognizes that these specialty tests “are now a little ‘squeezed'”. The young girl is aware that the third trimester counts in the continuous monitoring but “but with those of the year of first and the other two of final, we say to ourselves that it is one trimester out of six, it does not matter… ” Regarding absenteeism, she says that “a quarter of the class is often absent”.
Terminale students are now only waiting to pass the last two tests: philosophy and their grand oral. “As they know roughly where they are” after the anticipated tests, “we could fear a certain absenteeism”, confides Jean-Yves Soulier, principal of the Déodat de Séverac high school in Toulouse. “But our students are pretty much there”, he explains, even if “it’s true that we have to find the levers of motivation for them to come to class” with, for example, the implementation of “preparations for the big oral”.
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Minister’s warning
Pap Ndiaye, spoke on the subject which is of growing concern to parents and the educational body. At the microphone of Franceinfo, the Minister of National Education first wanted to recall “the obligation to go to class from the first to the last day”. Before confirming that without having figures, he had “field feedback” which made it possible to note this absenteeism. “School is not optional and it is not optional,” he said.
“No longer going to specialty courses is a bad calculation,” warned the minister. While it is true that Parcoursup first takes into account the events that take place at the end of March, “there is an additional phase for those who have not had their first wishes”. And in this phase, “we take into account the results of the third quarter”, underlined the tenant of the rue de Grenelle.
And a possible decline in early tests that would allow students to stay motivated longer does not seem to be on the agenda. The Minister confided that it was very complicated to modify these dates because of “very limited room for maneuver in terms of the calendar”.