Anne Coffinier is president of “Create your school” and former student of the École normale supérieure and the ENA.
This morning, the Minister of National Education announced the modalities according to which the diploma and the bac will be passed this year in the context of the coronavirus crisis. The situation is complex and everyone must be flexible and understanding. However, certain provisions are truly shocking, including the totally derogatory treatment which is reserved for students in private secondary schools without contracts. However, the Minister had indicated that his priority was "not to harm the students" ! On March 15, he said that there are no more students from public or private schools but only children from France. Were they just empty words?
This solution combines all the disadvantages and injustices.Instead of obtaining their diploma through continuous assessment, from the notes in the school book like the other students for this exceptional year, students from private establishments without a contract (also called independent) will be singled out, ordered to pass the bac in September on the basis of final face-to-face tests, assuming that sanitary conditions allow it. We hope that we were mistaken and that we did not fully understand what the minister said, given that this solution combines all the disadvantages and injustices.
First, the non-contracted bac in September 2020 will be much more difficult to obtain than for other students, since it will take place after the holidays, on subjects designed only for these categories of students, with no possibility of tests. catch-up (unlike other candidates who will have them in July and September).
Then, students will not have their bac confirmation in time to be able to follow the Parcoursup process in good conditions. They will therefore not be able to integrate the upper streams to which their level would legitimately give them access: Parcoursup will put them on the waiting list, since unlike the others, they will not be able to present their baccalaureate diploma in July to obtain a definitive registration.
Students in the final year without a contract will have to work all summer and will have to move on to a school year that they will start late.This bac therefore causes discrimination in access to higher education. Finally, students in the final year without a contract will have to work all summer and will have to follow a school year that they will start late (if they enroll in a BTS or a prep class for example), and without having taken any rest!
We therefore ask the minister to reconsider his position. In the current context, it is solidarity and national unity that must prevail, not the discriminatory treatment of certain categories of the nation. Do we have to remember that non-contract high schools are also those that welcome pupils in difficulty, atypical pupils, carrying a mental illness, a handicap or coming out of illness or victim of harassment or school phobia? How many adults have they been saved in extremis by a private bin that made them get their bac where the public high school had given up?
The time has come to be magnanimous. It is time for our minister to adopt the most logical solution: pass the certificate and the baccalaureate to non-contract students using the marks obtained throughout the year. Only for this very exceptional bac session due to the pandemic. These notes are already used for Parcoursup, why could it not be used to deliver the bac? Sanc to count that these establishments without contract, since the Gatel law of April 2018, are strongly inspected and supervised, that the professors are required to have a certain level of diploma and that the quality of teaching is therefore sufficiently guaranteed. It is therefore a question of common sense, which must defeat ideology.
