“This will create even more stress”, judge Gwenn Thomas-Alves, of the High School Union

“It will create even more stress”estimated Sunday December 17 on franceinfo Gwenn Thomas-Alves, spokesperson for the High School Union (USL), after the Minister of Higher Education Sylvie Retailleau announced some new features for the post-baccalaureate admission platform Parcoursup, which will open Wednesday December 20.

High school students will have the possibility of creating their profile from the Secondary class to better orient themselves. “Emmanuel Macron’s objective is to stress out students”, notes Gwenn Thomas-Alves. The USL spokesperson believes “that currently, there are not enough places” at University. The union demands “150,000 places” so that students can “love what they do, continue their direction, and have a diploma”.

franceinfo: Creating your profile on Parcoursup from secondary school, is this a good way to anticipate your orientation?

Gwenn Thomas-Alves: You should know that, already in second year, high school students are not sure of what they want to do afterwards. The problem with this novelty announced by Sylvie Retailleau is that we will end up with high school students who will choose specialties and who, then, in their final year, will realize that that is not what they want to do. Second thing, we have students who are already very stressed in Première and Terminale because of continuous assessment. There, the fact of being, from the Second, with Parcoursup, will create even more stress. And that’s a bit of Emmanuel Macron’s objective. It’s putting stress on the students. And then they miss their orientation because of the crusher that is Parcoursup.

Isn’t this also a way to prepare in advance, to have more information and to explain what the opportunities are in this or that sector?

Of course. What was announced is, in fact, that we will be able to find out on the training sheets when the open days are. But the reality is that high school students are not waiting to know when the open days are, but waiting for the end of Parcoursup and the opening of places at university. What we are asking for is 150,000 places. Because currently there are not enough places.

“We consider that from the moment we have a high school diploma, we can access university. And today, that is not the case.”

Gwenn Thomas-Alves, spokesperson for the High School Union

at franceinfo

Do you want us to work first for the post-baccalaureate, that is to say for the university course, and not upstream?

There has to be upstream. It is important that there are teachers who are trained on the university, on the orientations, that there are psychologists from the National Education who are recruited, because currently this is not the case . It’s missing. There are very few students who are followed by a guidance counselor. This absolutely must be the case. Then, there must be post-baccalaureate support, because there are students who want to reorient themselves. And what we notice with Parcoursup is that every year, there are 150,000 people who were in license 1, who reorient themselves via Pacoursup because they are not happy with the training they received.

What do you propose ? Beforehand, are there things that you think would be important to help students?

Information is indeed needed. It is very important that there is both teacher training and also fact sheets, which Onisep does. But above all there must be places at university. This is really what our subject is about. And this is what we have been trying to say since 2018 and which the ministry cannot hear. There is a problem with places today at university. From the moment we increase places at university, there will be people who will be able to love what they do, continue their career path, and obtain a diploma.