Claude Obadia is a philosopher. Associate professor, he teaches at the University of Cergy-pontoise, at ISC Paris and in the second degree. He notably published Les Lumières en berne? Reflections on a present in search of the future (2011) and Kant prophet? Elements for a Europhilosophy (2014).
At the time of the publication of the results of the Baccalaureate, it is a safe bet that the 2020 session of this monument of our educational system will remain etched in our memories. Firstly because of the exceptional organizational methods adopted because of the health crisis we are experiencing. Suppression of the anticipated French tests, suppression of the written tests sanctioning the year of Terminale in favor of the averages obtained by the pupils in the first two terms. We had never seen this since 1968! But that's not all. Everyone knows that the reform of the school implemented by Jean-Michel Blanquer includes the introduction of a portion of continuous assessment in the definition of the grades taken into account for obtaining this exam. However, this session sees all the tests eliminated for the benefit of the control. Will this be enough to ruin the value of the baccalaureate 2020 or should it not rather convince us to delete once and for all the final exams of the Bac in favor of the marks obtained by the students throughout the year? That is the question.
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Everyone knows that the function of the Baccalaureate is plural. If it sanctions the end of secondary studies and opens access to higher education, it symbolizes today the allegedly democratic spirit of the educational policies carried out in France since the end of the Sixties. Pursuing higher studies has thus become as a kind of right which everyone, starting with the least culturally endowed, could claim. This is also where the shoe pinches.
Pursuing higher education has thus become a kind of right.Considering the failure of socially disadvantaged students to be unfair, we have continued to implement reforms that have largely sacrificed the level of requirements required to access and succeed in higher education. Let us therefore be consistent! Why maintain an examination supposed to make a selection if one considers a priori that the academic failure of the least advantaged students constitutes an unbearable injustice? There is a contradiction there that it would be time to assume when the 2019 session of the General Baccalaureate saw 92% of the candidates obtain it. Because of two things one.
Either it is considered that academic merit reflects something other than the advantage conferred by a privileged social position and that it manifests the individual's own skills. In this case, the selection by merit being the least unfair of the selections, the Baccalaureate must be selective and awarded only to candidates who have the qualities enabling them to enter successful university courses. The facts on this point are cruel. Over 55% of students enrolled in the first year of the license (all fields combined) fail the passing exam in the second year. If the reasons are complex, one of them is clear. Convinced that the democratic principle implies the success of all, we grant the greatest number of people the right to access higher education, including those who do not have the qualities required to succeed. Now here you have to be honest.
Over 55% of students enrolled in the first year of the license (all fields combined) fail the passing exam in the second year.Because if we now think that the idea of academic merit only masks socio-economic domination relationships, then let's be consistent! Let’s remove this exam, which we don’t see any more what it can mean when 92% of the candidates pass it. And when we have some qualms about demanding this abolition, let us recognize, in this case, that it is high time to abolish the terminal examinations for the baccalaureate in favor of generalized continuous supervision.
Some people today fear that the Bac 2020, because of the elimination of the final exams, will have no value. Be serious! Suppose, which will not be the case, that the success rate this year will be 100%. How would this upset ordinary success rates? More than nine out of ten candidates pass the General Baccalaureate exam each year, which is therefore no longer selective. Why, in these conditions, not to delete the final tests in favor of a generalized continuous control? We would save more than a billion and a half euros each year. We would school the students until the end of June. And that's not all. Because one can always miss a test punctually, the candidates would be more reasonably evaluated on the whole of the results obtained during the year. Finally, the authority of teachers in their classes would be considerably strengthened by this system.
The selective sectors recruit on files, which are created at the end of March.Some will make two arguments. The first is to invoke the virtues of anonymity in evaluation. The corrector does not know the candidate, so he will not note "at the head of the client". Is. But is it enough for an evaluation to be anonymous for it to be fair? Let us doubt it. The second argument is that of the “two-speed” Bac. There would be the diploma obtained in this or that high school in the city center and that which would be dropped in the suburbs. But where is the problem? The selective sectors recruit on files, which are created at the end of March. The removal of the terminal exam would have absolutely no effect on this recruitment. As for the university streams, who is unaware that they are automatically accessible to any bachelor? Here again, the abolition of the final examinations would in no case disadvantage pupils enrolled in establishments in sensitive neighborhoods.
It's time to conclude. Because in the name of the democratic imperative we have disqualified merit, the baccalaureate has lost all selectivity. Is it not therefore appropriate either to restore to this highly symbolic examination the value that it has lost, or to delete it altogether for the benefit of continuous monitoring of pupils' skills?
