Valérie Rialland is LR departmental advisor for Var and a high school teacher.
With the new year, the Parcoursup struggle will soon begin for the families of the 900,000 final year candidates who hope to win the Holy Grail at the end of the school year, that is to say a place of their choice in higher education.
While the connection phase begins and the procedure will last until June, the years have passed since the implementation of this system and the criticisms have not weakened.
The latest survey carried out following the 2023 procedure revealed that only three in ten young people believe that Parcoursup offers equitable access to higher education.
In addition, the majority of high school and university students find the platform ineffective: only 44% find it useful, 38% intuitive, and 33% capable of answering their questions.
Also read: Jérôme Teillard (Parcoursup): “It is not an algorithm that examines applications”
This software, also criticized for its lack of transparency, highlights the flaws in the education system and calls into question the effectiveness of social advancement.
However, Parcoursup was designed to guide students towards their academic future, it presents a wide range of training.
But, the abundance of information available can be overwhelming and anxiety-inducing, especially for those who are still undecided in their career choice.
The registration process on Parcoursup resembles an obstacle course, accentuating inequalities between students.
Families who lack resources or involvement often find themselves with poorly developed files, reducing their children's chances of accessing the best training.
Conversely, the most involved parents strive to build complete profiles for their children, going so far as to invent activities and interests to enrich their profile, the sections of which are worthy of a job application. in company.
You must show varied “centers of interest”, have had “supervision or leadership experiences”, detail “your civic commitment” and already benefit from “professional experience” when applying for training and to top it off, demonstrate “openness to the world”.
Instead of superimposing layers of information that are often difficult to verify, the system must be simplified.
Valerie Rialland
Finally, you must write the famous cover letter, the length of which varies depending on the training requested.
We thus complete the plethoric list of all the administrative documents to be provided worthy of a bureaucracy or should I say a syndrome of “bureaucracy” omnipresent in all parts of our society.
This phenomenon highlights the reign of communication over substance, and the ability of parents to navigate the system becomes a key factor in student success, rather than the skills and qualities of the student themselves.
Even the educational part, managed by teachers, does not escape this dynamic.
Records are often adjusted to give students every chance of succeeding, leading to widespread over-evaluation and biased assessments.
This practice, coupled with the administration's tendency to inflate baccalaureate grades to reach certain averages, makes the Parcoursup selection process even more opaque and unfair.
To complete this picture, the selection system based on the Parcoursup algorithm is complex and often perceived as random.
The criteria vary from one training to another, making it difficult for families to understand how to optimize their children's chances of success.
As a result, the result may seem unfair, with bright students sometimes refused in courses where others, less efficient, are accepted.
Also read “When bureaucracy plunges emergencies into chaos”
Teachers, despite their efforts, cannot support each student individually in this overly complex process as it would be time-consuming and take them away from their primary mission of teaching and transmitting the knowledge essential to preparing students for higher education.
Faced with these challenges, it is imperative to rethink Parcoursup to make it more fair, accessible and transparent.
Instead of superimposing layers of information that are often difficult to verify, the system must be simplified.
A more equitable model should be adopted, favoring meritocracy and focusing on the student's actual academic ability, rather than their extracurricular commitments.
The baccalaureate should be part of the reflection.
This diploma, once a key milestone in French education, has completely lost its relevance.
It is time to consider a more modern system, such as a “bac 2.0”, which would fairly and efficiently assess students for entry into higher education, thus avoiding an opaque system designed in the spirit of a bureaucracy omnipresent, unfair and time-consuming for everyone.