On this day of the return of the Easter holidays, the students of the vocational high school Maria Deraismes (XVIIth) came across their English teacher in full auto-da-fé of copy. Victor Immordino, a contract teacher, set fire to several copies of his students in a metal basket in front of the school. A premeditated gesture to sound the alarm on the methods of marking the tests.
"Before the exam, I chose to disclose the topic to my students and prepare it with them. My reasoning was as follows: these final year students are coming to the end of their secondary education," he explains. In the vocational stream, the subject of the national baccalaureate of English is written by the teachers of each high school, and the examination session is organized at the discretion of each institution. "None of them can speak English. It is therefore that the courses they have taken during the last seven years are a failure, "regrets the teacher, whose students worked on the test on April 18.
The information leaked and the subject was changed at the last minute, pushing his students to failure. Of the 63 copies he burned, the vast majority is, according to him, catastrophic. "This motivates me to warn about the urgency to radically change the way of doing things, by burning, a little dramatically, the copies of the English test 2023 of my students, in front of my high school," he continues.
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"The lack of determination and seriousness of the students in their learning could be a valid argument if it were not all the students," continues Victor Immordino. Being partly responsible for this failure, I told myself that the least I could do was to help them get a good grade on the exam, thus increasing their chance of having their baccalaureate and leaving to try their luck beyond high school with this sesame in their hands rather than nothing, "he argues.
The rectorate wants to file a complaint
This language test, which is part of the in-training tests (CCF), is still corrected on paper and the copies are not scanned, like those of the general baccalaureate exams. Myriam, 19, lost her copy in this protest. "I understand it, in the sense that the National Education does not do much, especially for us, students of vocational high school," comments the young woman.
Next week, the tests continue with oral language for these high school students. "This gesture is part of a context. We must see the reform of the vocational high school envisaged by the Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye... It's terrible," scolds Eric Cavaterra of SNUEP-FSU Paris, a union of vocational high school teachers.
Contacted, the rectorate of Paris argues that Victor Immordino "defaulted" by disclosing the subject of the exam to his students, which would have earned him "to have been refused a resumption of service". As a result, "the teacher ostensibly burned a packet of copies in front of the entrance to the school," continues the rectorate, according to which the police intervened on the spot. "All measures have already been taken so that students are not penalized as part of their baccalaureate exam, continue the services of the National Education, which evoke a "dysfunctional staff" whose contract "is coming to an end and will not be renewed". The rectorate adds that an "HR" procedure is underway and that "a complaint will be filed".
