The Covid-19 continues to rot the lives of high school students. After distance courses, the waltz of health protocols and repeated absences for contamination, high school students must already be thinking about the baccalaureate. In particular to the specialty tests which count for a third of the final mark and which must take place next March.
The problem could have arisen already last year, but the Minister of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer had taken the decision to cancel them to replace them with continuous monitoring. A situation that should not be repeated in 2022. In view of the chaotic school year that the world of education is experiencing, a firm hold in March seems compromised for the moment… unless compromised.
High school students want to keep the tests in March
Before making his decision, Jean-Michel Blanquer launched consultations last Thursday. By then, his brain should be heating up. Because opinions are far from unanimous.
On the one hand, some high school students and part of the parent-teacher organizations (Peep, Unaape, Apel) hope to maintain the tests with accommodation, to adapt them to the lessons that the students have been able to follow. Their request is based in particular on the fear of seeing the hardships accumulate in June. Only a postponement of one to two weeks could be considered, according to them.
Students fear for their Parcoursup file
But for the Federation of Parents’ Councils (FCPE), this is not a sufficient solution. She would prefer that the tests be postponed further: “We are asking for a delay in April which would allow the ministry to survey the high schools and find out where they are in the program in order to arrange the tests as well as possible. This would also allow students to get more information on what awaits them,” explains Eric Labastie, secretary general of the federation.
This additional time, the FCPE would like it to be, in part, devoted to “trivialization” sequences for the exams. That is to say days, or a week, dedicated to the exclusive preparation for the event. “All the students have been experiencing a checkered education for two years. They need a specific time to get in the right direction,” says Eric Labastie.
But then why not simply ask for a postponement to June? Firstly because it would prevent these notes from appearing in the students’ Parcoursup file (which must be finalized on March 29), according to the FCPE. However, higher education establishments would make “more and more efforts to take them into account”, believes Eric Labastie. But also because it would bring them closer to the philosophy test and the Grand Oral. “We don’t want high school students to go back to a big end-of-year cramming,” he insists. Another pitfall according to the FCPE: this solution would penalize the other levels by mobilizing teachers who could no longer teach seconds, for example.
June “the least worst solution”, for the Snes
However, the teachers’ unions seem unanimous: postponing the specialty tests to June is the “least worst solution”. “There are a whole series of difficulties to understand, we can no longer organize these events correctly in March”, assures Alexis Torchet, general secretary of the Sgen-CFDT union. According to him, the last variant has accentuated the inequalities between the students, those who have had distance learning courses and the others, those who have had a teacher all year and the others… “The ministry must make a decision as quickly as possible possible and organize now”, alerts Alexis Torchet.
An observation on which agrees Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, another teachers’ union. “There are absentees every day, suddenly it’s contamination, the next day it’s contact cases, and every day it’s different students… It’s impossible to finish the programs in time for March. “Rather than embarking on a counter-productive time trial, the trade unionist recommends putting things back on track by scheduling the events in June while taking the time, from now on, to prepare for them.
Verdict at the end of the week
For Sophie Vénétitay, there is nothing insurmountable in organizing the tests in June: “It was still like this only three years ago and for decades, the baccalaureate holders sometimes passed 7 or 8 tests in a week. »
Contacted by 20 minutes, the Ministry of National Education, says it is still working on the subject on Tuesday, and ensures that the decision will be made “in the second part of this week”. For his part, Jean-Michel Blanquer declared this Tuesday during a trip to Tourcoing that he would announce his choice “within eight days”.