This year, the Ministry of National Education is committed to it, "everyone is staying in the same boat" when it comes to long vacations. Officially, the 12 million schoolchildren, middle school and high school students will be on summer rest starting on July 4 for a scheduled resumption on September 1.
Usually, during a third trimester without an epidemic of Covid-19, students leave in dispersed order. If, in the primary, they leave their classes always at the beginning of July, in the secondary on the other hand, those who do not pass the certificate or the bac generally have finished with the courses between mid-June and the end of June. Except that this time, the written and oral tests of the two exams were canceled.
On paper, all teens and tweens must therefore play overtime for this 2020 vintage at the end of the school year. In high schools, it is mainly from a distance that lessons will take place until July 4 when some students are already… on vacation. "Me, I am sure to have my baccalaureate, I have my school for the next school year, so I am currently no longer attending classes," confesses a young graduate in Saint-Cloud (Hauts-de-Seine).
Not easy for teachers to motivate their troops
Private colleges have already announced to some of their students that lessons will end on June 24, June 26 ... "Depending on the institution, it can vary. Everyone is free to organize their working time over the year. There were some who, for example, had started their return earlier, "says Catholic Education, while stressing that" in the majority of cases, it ends on July 4 ".
In public and private colleges in France, most students must return their textbooks next week. “They can continue to learn on other types of media. It's good to start again for two weeks, it will give them a new rhythm ”, positive Ghislaine Morvan-Dubois, vice-president of the FCPE Paris in charge of second degree. Not easy for teachers to motivate their troops. "It will not be school as before, not education in the true sense of the term," explains Frédérique Rolet, general secretary of Snes-FSU, the first secondary union.
"We will end up with sparse classes"
Some students already have their heads elsewhere. "My daughter's class council has passed, she already knows the results of her certificate, she has not had any distance lessons or homework for a week", says the mother of a third year teenager in a public college Parisian. "Of course, we will end up with sparse classes, even if some students want to find their comrades," predicts Serge Lacassie, president of the Association of teachers of biology and geology, recalling that coronavirus or not, "The end of the school year is always a complicated period".
Parents, who had planned early family vacations at the end of June, thinking that their offspring would no longer return to class, are now faced with a difficult choice. And somewhat embarrassed at the sidelines: a few weeks ago, some of them insisted on resuming lessons in "face-to-face" mode.