"Relax the rubber band", "lower the temperature", "calm the game" ... From the National Education floors to the sidewalk on rue de Bellechasse, in Paris (7th district), where a few dozen flags were still floating on Friday of demonstrators, the metaphors are varied but the purpose unanimous. It is time for the high schools to come back down in pressure, after four weeks marked by a violent agitation around the tests of continuous control of the new bac, with chaotic and contested organization.
But how do you calm down? While many rely on school holidays - which start in the Paris region and in Occitania - to refresh the atmosphere of boiling classes, the school reform monitoring committee has just launched two weeks of consultations with all stakeholders in the world school.
Jean-Michel Blanquer also said he was ready, Thursday, to "evolve in the direction of simplicity" the second session of tests. These controls scheduled for March-April should, according to our information, be postponed to mid-May. The national bank of subjects, extracts of which have already been widely published by high school students on social networks, will be made public, a way of placing all students equally in their reviews.
The reform monitoring committee will also give its copy to the minister on March 11 on the adjustments to be made in the longer term. "Putting people around the table now is like warning that we risk falling when we already have a broken leg ..." squeaks, FCPE flag on the shoulder, Florence Claudepierre, representative of the parents' association of pupils in his department of Haut-Rhin. “In the meantime, our children are under pressure that they shouldn't know about. "
The fact remains that within the committee, we want to give ourselves reasons to hope: Snes, the main union of high school teachers, and fierce opponent of the reform, says it is ready to "think about stage tests first" , explains its assistant general secretary, Sophie Venetitay. But from there to agree to evaluate the students partly in continuous control, with the marks obtained throughout the year by the high school students, "it's no and still no," she insists.
The subject, almost a matter of principle, deeply divides the teaching world, between those who plead for a simpler and more modern examination, and those who fear that continuous monitoring will dilute the tray to the point of making it lose all its weight. Teachers would lose a powerful lever to motivate their students to work, and listen in class.
Towards local examinations led by teachers?
To get around the obstacle, we phosphorus to the ministry on the means of passing through the eye of the needle: proposing to develop the E3Cs into “controls during training”, sorts of local exams, in which these are the teachers, and no longer the rectorates, who pilot the subjects and the tests. A system in force for ten years in vocational high schools and BTS ... without yet reaching consensus. "The system poses teachers as judges and parts of their students, it is problematic, said Sigrid Gerardin, spokesperson for teachers of high schools pro Snuep-FSU union. In the first and final years, we are constantly evaluating the students, so we lose teaching time. "
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"The vocation of continuous monitoring is to validate everyone's regular work, it is also a preparation for higher education", opposes Jean-François Ringard, the co-pilot of the reform monitoring committee, who wishes to recall that " France is the only country in Europe with Scotland not to have introduced a part of continuous monitoring in its final examination. As part of the reform, 60% of the new bac will always be sanctioned by end-of-terminal exams, including a large oral whose contours are still not specified.
Indulgence "on a case by case" basis for blockers
Under the windows of the Ministry of Education, this Friday, a few dozen standard-bearers are humming from Balavoine, with house words: "I'm not a zero!" What do these parents of students, mostly FCPE members, claim? School amnesty for first graders, who have been punished in recent days by a bubble in their continuous bac exams, for having participated in the blockades of their schools since January 20. Response from rue de Grenelle: no general indulgence, but leniency "on a case by case" basis for young people.
"Wherever there is confusion, doubt will benefit the student," explains Edouard Geffray, number two in the ministry. On the other hand, there is no question of canceling the tests, as requested by some of the families concerned, while 1.2 million copies have already been written, and a quarter of them have already been corrected. According to the Ministry of Education, only 15% of the establishments were affected by disturbances during the taking of the tests.