The dysfunctions in student guidance are such that Renaissance and LFI have managed to agree on a common position! We need a real national orientation policy, plead the deputies Thomas Cazenave (Renaissance) and Hendrik Davi (LFI-Nupes) in a report devoted to essment of access to higher education .
Thomas Cazenave even sees it as a subject for “the new act”, after the hundred days set by Emmanuel Macron for Elisabeth Borne on April 17. “The orientation should be a real public policy to fight against inequalities at the root, pleads the deputy. Parcoursup catalyzes all criticism, in fact expressing a need for everything that happens upstream”, before being “faced with a wall”.
A “collective mess”
The remark recalls that of Emmanuel Macron, before the last presidential election: “I do not consider that we have finished, completely treated the subject with Parcoursup, he had declared. We must begin this work of orientation before and therefore we must […] profoundly rethink the orientation of our adolescents”.
The report shows to what extent the “tangle” of actors complicates guidance support. And speaks of a “collective mess”.
Within National Education, the regional rectorates intervene, in addition to the academic services of information and orientation at the level of the rectorates of the academy (which ensure the regional delegation of ONISEP). In high schools, orientation refers to the role of headteachers, head teachers – they saw their role reinforced in 2018 – and to that of new referent teachers, since the start of the 2021 school year. Not to mention the historic role of psychologists in National Education, whose number is considered “insufficient” – there is only one for 1,500 students.
Higher education further complicates this “complex architecture”, within the framework of new areas of pedagogical innovation. As well as that of the private sector – even if it is considered “essential”, under the discovery of trades. “The situation is such that the academic authorities are unable to know who intervenes in the establishments and what their jurisdiction is,” notes Hendrik Davi.
A guidance officer
For the two rapporteurs, a national policy is needed, with an inter-ministerial orientation delegate who would steer the various players. They therefore sweep away any deepening of decentralization while the regions – which saw their role in orientation expanded in 2018 – consider that they do not have the means to implement the competence that has been devolved to them. The report highlights the “proliferation” of regional actions but points to territorial inequalities.
For the two deputies, it is in the establishments that everything is played out. However, the 54 hours per year dedicated to orientation – promised under the previous five-year period during the implementation of Parcoursup – are far from a reality . “A third of high schools do not have a timetable dedicated to orientation, underlines Thomas Cazenave. Guidance remains the poor relation of school policy, due to the seriousness of school problems, the lack of teacher training and the lack of means. »
The rapporteurs suggest making these 54 hours a year compulsory, including them in the timetables of high school students and “budgeting” them so that they become a reality everywhere. It is also necessary, they recommend, to rely on all the teachers and not only on the main teachers. And train them. “Since 1989, all teachers have, among their service obligations, the mission of guidance support,” recalls Hendrik Davi.
The report invites us to wonder about the missions of the psychologists of the National Education, which must at the same time be divided between tasks relating to clinical skills in respect of the mental health of the pupils and others related to orientation.
Delete cover letter
The two deputies also point to the “often relative” usefulness of the cover letter attached to each training request in Parcoursup. A stressor. They also believe that the hierarchy of wishes could intervene “earlier in the procedure” to shorten its duration.
And finally demand a rigorous mapping of sectors in tension. Because Parcoursup is often criticized because of the lack of places. Sometimes, these courses are not intended to be provided for lack of outlets, indicates the report, but sometimes also some deserve to be better provided, for example in medicine.
Tackling the third trimester of senior year
It is “absolutely” necessary to reflect on the last quarter of the final year, affirm the deputies Cazenave and Davi in their report. Many teachers have warned of the lack of motivation of students to continue going to cl after the specialty tests in March, high school students considering that with Parcoursup, everything was already settled.
“We are going to review things, we cannot be satisfied with a third quarter which is unraveling, we have a major problem, admitted the Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye, Thursday, on France 2. We must reclaim the third trimester. Pap Ndiaye ruled out the possibility, raised by some, of not giving the marks for the March specialty tests until June.
But he mentioned the track of a university admission which would be conditioned on the continuation of the work of the pupils during the third quarter. A kind of “yes if”. The subject will be decided in September, he announced.