It’s time to get started! The Parcoursup website opens this Thursday, January 20 at 11 a.m.: senior high school students and students who want to change paths must express their wishes, on this website, for the rest of their course. There are nearly 20,000 training courses listed there to be studied until March 29. Young people will be taken according to multiple criteria: geography, level, interests, experiences…
The fact remains that Parcoursup is a platform that is strongly criticized, both by representatives of high school students, students, teachers, but also by many politicians and presidential candidates. They point to a system that is too selective, very stressful. To this, this year, we must add the health crisis linked to Covid-19, which makes this obligatory passage even more difficult for many young people, as in front of this high school in Aulnay-sous-Bois, in Seine-Saint-Denis. VSfinal year students admit that it is difficult to find time to talk about orientation with the teachers. “Very few do“, we hear in chorus.
The main cause: the Covid-19 which disrupts the lessons a lot with its share of absences. Of these three teenage girls, for example, two have recently been infected. Without forgetting the teachers, too, sick or prevented. As a result, dozens of hours are lost and the time normally devoted to choosing studies is sometimes wasted. “In fact, we continue the course instead of doing the orientation. As the program is very busy, everyone is late. For example, we have only done one hour of orientation since the beginning of the year“says a young girl.
This boy regrets the lack of facilities given the health situation: “It puts a lot of pressure. There are still so many cases. We act like everything is normal. It stresses the teachers and us too. In fact, our whole orientation depends on that. We are a bit lost“.
The Covid therefore weighs on the projects that high school students must imagine, this is what Sylvie Amici, psychologist for National Education, observes: “What are young people saying? It’s me, my file, given that there are so many absences, so much time like that where there may not be many notes, how will it be for me when the establishments go to see my file?“
This psychologist also recalls that the students currently in the final year, have only lived disrupted high school years, since 2020.