Le Muy (France) (AFP)

Three days before the start of the school year, Édouard Philippe defended on Friday during a trip to the Var the "ambitious" reform of the high school which nevertheless worries part of the teaching world.

Asked during a visit to a high school in Le Muy to know if the reform was elitist, the Prime Minister replied: "No she is ambitious and ambition is not a big word".

"Elitism is not a big word either, it's even been one of the foundations of republican functioning for a very long time," said Philippe, "The aim of the reform is to better prepare the whole, and not just the so-called elite, students from France to be freer, more mature and in some ways more armed, intellectually stronger to face the coming world. "

"We assume that if we want a real social promotion, we have to pull everyone up, every time we pull up, we have more satisfactions than failures," said the minister. Education Jean-Michel Blanquer during an exchange with professors from the Polyvalent High School of Val d'Argens du Muy who were doing their re-entry, three days before that of their students.

This coming back causes "stress" and "uncertainty" for some teachers. Because if the new baccalaureate, which will take into account the continuous control, will not see the day until June 2021, changes will intervene this year for the students of first, who will be the first to pass the examination in its new form.

The S, ES and L series are deleted and replaced by specialties which require special arrangements.

Édouard Philippe recalled in this respect that one of the objects of the reform was to "multiply the possibilities of combinations of subjects offered to students in first class".

However, "we found that almost half, 47% of students, had chosen combinations of subjects that they could not have done if the reform had not taken place," he said. insisted, ensuring that this coming back "with a lot of confidence".

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