The Republican motto “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”, visible on the pediments of the schools, is a hit. This is what can be deduced by reading the survey carried out by Ifop for the Kairos Foundation for Educational Innovation and unveiled Monday evening. According to this, 6 out of 10 French people believe that school does not give the same opportunities to all children. The fact that disadvantaged children are most often grouped together in the same establishments explains this perception. But that’s not all: “For ten years, some French people consider that the quality of public schools has deteriorated. They found, with the various Pisa studies and statistically, the downward trend in student performance and the fact that social origins weighed on academic success, ”analyzes Jérôme Fourquet, who heads the opinion department of Ifop.
Parents of college students are those who make the most pessimistic diagnosis. Not surprising when you know that it is from college that some students evaporate in the private sector; a way to circumvent the school map when their parents judge the sector college negatively. Where they live also seems to play an important role in the chances of success at school: 58% of French people questioned believe that each child does not have the same opportunities if they live in town or in a small rural town. The sign that they are aware that city center establishments, public or private, are most often frequented by children from privileged social classes.
Open the doors of all schools to disadvantaged students
Despite this gloomy observation, the French do not remain with their heads in their hands. They even have strong opinions on improving equal opportunities at school. Thus, 56% of them consider that the State can act by allowing less privileged students to access the public or private school of their choice, by covering all tuition fees and by abolishing the school card. . A model that particularly appeals to parents working in intermediate professions, who do not always have the means to finance tuition fees in the private sector when they wish to put their children there.
This idea resonates all the more after the mixed school plan recently announced by Pap Ndiaye. Except that this option is far from the orientations taken by the Minister of Education. The school card still exists in the public, even if in Paris, for example, the Afelnet system allows students of scholarship holders to choose high schools and takes into account their good academic results in their assignment. The Minister has set the somewhat vague objective of “reducing the differences in social recruitment between establishments by 20% by 2027”, without knowing by what means. Furthermore, private education has only undertaken to take in more scholarship holders if the latter receive help from the local authorities for the canteen. And the municipalities, departments and regions did not react to these announcements, which is not very promising for the future.
One in four French people pleads for a comprehensive reform of the Ministry of National Education
Another suggestion put forward by the Ifop poll: educate all French people in a single system, where the private and the public would be fused (25% of respondents approve of this proposal). An idea favored by 29% of parents schooling their children in the public sector, but by only 15% of those who have a child in the private sector. “Those who want the most change are the families of the public. Those from the private sector do not want to open the game of meritocracy, in particular for fear of competition with students from the public sector analyzes Anne Coffinier, founder of the Kairos Foundation
As for the idea of imposing quotas forcing the most efficient establishments to take pupils of different levels and social origins, it appeals to 15% of French people. But impossible for her to see the light of day, private education having refused that Pap Ndiaye imposes on her this system.
Whatever directions are taken, they will require a comprehensive reform of the Ministry of National Education, according to 40% of French people. “Faced with the collapse of the school’s results, they no longer want half measures”, underlines Jérôme Fourquet. Some of them also plead for more autonomy for public schools, the regular evaluation of their results and the publication of these evaluations (20% of respondents). At the risk of further increasing competition between establishments.