Coronavirus obliges, high school students pass the bac in continuous assessment

Text by: RFI Follow

The baccalaureate exams were due to start on Wednesday, but due to the coronavirus epidemic, the exam is being replaced by a continuous assessment. How do high school students live with this decision?

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Caramel-colored eyes under a slightly too long fringe, Éléa, a high school student in literary terminus at the prestigious Lycée Henri IV in Paris, experienced the news as a deliverance: "  I was extremely stressed by the bac because I was afraid fail before passing the exam, she explains. So I'm very relieved about the fact that we no longer have an exam, especially since I already have the average and I am sure I will have my baccalaureate. It relieves me. "

The disadvantaged elite high schools

His comrade Angelica, lively and petite, is a student, also in this elite high school. She considers examining the bac as a passing ritual. “  For me, passing the bac test was like a kind of stage before embarking on other studies. And it's quite strange not to pass this stage precisely,  ”she regrets.

For this Covid option baccalaureate, continuous assessment is used for the award of the diploma. However, we know that prestigious establishments rate more severely to achieve excellence. "  Yes, this year we are" disadvantaged "compared to the bac, but the other years we are favored because we are in an elite high school, we have the right to a" better education ", relativizes Éléa. I think the problem comes from the fact that there are elite high schools and "garbage" high schools, and not that the fact that it is the elite high schools that find themselves disadvantaged. For once, it turns around and so much the better, because maybe it will allow people to realize that there is a problem. "

In this high school, the continuous assessment, which takes into account the grades of the students' year, will undoubtedly affect the number of grades awarded.

A review in September in some cases

But not all candidates for the baccalaureate will be housed in the same boat. Those who have registered as a free candidate, who have not followed schooling, for example, but are still trying the exam, will have to take the classic bac exams in September. This is also the case for certain young people enrolled in French lycées abroad who are not approved.

They live it as an injustice and say it in a video on YouTube: "  We are meeting today to say no to the September baccalaureate  ", "  No to this great inequality and not to this terrible discrimination.  "

These young people, enrolled in French high schools in Morocco, Algeria, Guinea or even Israel, will have to floor in September. Their establishments are not recognized by the Agency for French Education Abroad (AEFE). Graduates must therefore prove their level through the classic homework on the table.

This year, exceptionally, the exam will only take place at the start of the school year. What upsets the projects of Bruno, schooled at the lycée Fred et Poppée in Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire. “  My son had to go to France to start organizing, looking for accommodation, opening a bank account, etc.,  reports his mother Macathy Dosso. Today, first of all, we don't even have the date in September. Given the peak of Covid that we have now, it is not even said that these exams can happen. In addition, the children are not in the favorable conditions to take an exam. Schools close from July 4. Good luck!  "

In Côte d'Ivoire, 130 high school students are affected. Impossible to know how many there are around the world. National Education refuses to communicate this figure. But several hundred of them threaten to boycott the September trials.

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