It’s not quite 5 p.m. this Friday. Dimitri*, bag on one shoulder, has just walked through the door of the Beaugrenelle high school, in the 15th arrondissement of Paris: the holidays are starting and he has just smiled back. It must be said that school, “with all these courses that we are forced to take for no reason”, Dimitri, 17, doesn’t really like it. However, this final year professional management and administration (GA) student plans to take another step at it next year, by enrolling in a BTS if possible to aim for a bac + 2. “I am very obliged,” explains he. A GA baccalaureate alone is not advanced enough to find work. There are lots of things I don’t know how to do, which aren’t on the program. And in internship, I learn almost nothing. »
What is the value of the exam that he will take in June with all the other high school graduates? Dimitri is not the only one asking the question. According to our information, two working groups should be launched “before the end of October” on the subject at the Ministry of National Education, in parallel with a more general reflection announced on the baccalaureate. The experts will work on ways to upgrade the professional baccalaureate and the CAP, which in total concern 40% of secondary school students in France.
A more general schedule
Examining the avenues envisaged at Rue de Grenelle to restore the image of the professional sector, and presented in recent weeks to several teaching unions, the trend would be towards a rapprochement of professional baccalaureates with those, better rated, of technological and general paths. The curriculum could thus be reorganized so that the intermediate BEP diploma, which students all take in 1st grade, is transformed into anticipated examinations for the professional baccalaureate. Way to limit the number of tests and continuous assessments to which students are currently subject.
Furthermore, instead of concentrating on professional subjects from the second year onwards, young people would follow a more general timetable at the end of secondary school than today, with more hours of lessons in fundamental subjects and an overview of different professions in their sector. Specialization in a specific field would only happen in 1st grade, in the same way that young people in the general pathway wait for 1st grade to choose between a scientific, literary or economic baccalaureate.
“If I wanted to do literature, I would have done an L baccalaureate”
At the end of the Beaugrenelle high school, which trains nearly 300 students in sales, management and reception professions, we welcome this idea with… a certain coldness. “As someone who works five days a week as a delivery man after high school, I don’t have time for homework, sorry,” warns Julien*, 16 years old. “At the same time, maybe with more general courses everyone will stop believing that professional high school is easy…” Aliou slips, without really believing it. “What good does it do me to know conjugation tenses that I will never use? If I wanted to do literature, I would have done an L baccalaureate, in fact,” reacts, implacably, Dimitri.
The fact remains that the young man, like many of his comrades, did not really choose. It was his college, after a chaotic academic career, which decided for him to enroll in administration management. Same thing for Aliou: “Basically, I wanted to go on the general path, but there was dispute…” He does not despair of bouncing back to higher education: “Why not up to a master’s degree, like my brother, he says. But for that, we need to be better explained in high school what we can do after the baccalaureate. »