High school students are called on Monday to pass their first written specialty test against the backdrop of threats of strikes by supervisors or blockages in high schools.
In the very last hours of revision, the possible teachers’ strike worries a little Eya, a final year student in Vitry-sur-Seine. “We ask ourselves the question, what are we going to do if we don’t have teachers to watch us”, she says. But she is reassured. After all, the Ministry of Education has provided additional supervisors in the event of a massive strike.
The Director General of School Education, Édouard Geffray has indeed promised Monday, March 20 in the morning on franceinfo that all “is organized so that the examination centers are not blocked” and that there are enough supervisors. He recalled that a “one hour tolerance” delay will be granted to candidates who have difficulty reaching the examination centers and this, “without request for proof”. And the length of their delay “will be postponed until the end”assured the number 2 of the National Education.
Challenges that come early in the year
The other threat, that of possible blockages of high schools, which would prevent him from passing the baccalaureate, does not disturb Eya more. “If it’s postponed or cancelled, personally, I’m quite prepared so it doesn’t scare me at all.says the schoolgirl. I tell myself that it will perhaps be a little more training”. If actions are organized, the high school student unions will support them but they are not calling for blockages because the baccalaureate is too important.
According to the vice-president of La Voix lycéenne, Ephram Strzalka-Beloeil, the real source of concern are these tests which come so early in the year.
“In March, we did not finish the program.”
Ephram Strzalka-Beloeil, vice-president of La voix lycéenneat franceinfo
“Even with good teachers, we had to finish the course concepts in a hurry and I know that, in some classes, the teachers were outright handing out handouts”worries the high school student.
This new calendar, with tests from March, is the result of the reform of the baccalaureate. After two years disrupted by the Covid, this is the first time that it has been fully applied. Some 530,000 final year students will therefore take these two written specialty tests from Monday March 20 at 2 p.m. They will run until Wednesday. And the marks of these two “major” subjects chosen by the student count for a third of the overall mark.