Best pass rate for technological bac

THE technological version of the baccalauréat has seen its highest-ever pass rate at 81.7%, while other versions saw a slight drop on last year.

The technological bac involves areas such as engineering and accounting (broadly vocational, but usually leading to further study) and it saw results up 2% overall. The results for the general exam were down 1.6% at 87.2% and the professional exam, which is highly vocational and leads to jobs in varied sectors, saw results drop 1.2% to 85.4%.

All types combined, results were down 0.6%, at 85.4%. Overall about half of the students passing gained the general qualification and about a quarter each gained the other two.

The Education Minister, Luc Chatel, described the results as “a slight settling down” and said a total of 65.4% of a generation passed a baccalauréat in 2010, which was “comparable to the average over the past 15 years”. The government says last year’s result in the general exam was “rather exceptional” and this year’s pass rate is similar to 2007’s.

A recent trend of a high rate of students getting the top grading in the general exam was confirmed, with 7% being awarded a mention très bien for a mark of 16/20 or more (0.5% down on last year).
Only 1% received it in the technology exams and 0.9% in the professional ones. In 1967 only 0.3% of students achieved très bien in the general exam.

Senator of the Moselle Jean-Louis Masson said he feared this “inflation” showed a “worrying devaluation of the exam” and Le Figaro said that while très bien students always made their local papers in the past, now there were too many of them. Nearly half of passes were with at least a mention assez bien (ie. 12 or more, a bare pass being 10).

Mr Chatel said the improvement was the result of better overall training of young people now the bac is no longer seen as something for an educational elite.

The youngest person to pass was 14-year-old Déesse Dji’ Ala, from Rouen, who passed her general bac in the scientific strand.

Two boys from the same private lycée in Brest had more than 20/20, with results of 20.57 and 20.08. They did the literary version of the general bac and got exceptional marks owing to a Latin option, which had a special weighting in which marks above the average were multiplied by three.

Education areas with the most passes in the general exam were (from highest) Grenoble (92.4%), Strasbourg, Rennes and Nantes (all at least 91%) and Toulouse; those with the fewest were (from lowest) Créteil (81.1%), Amiens, Rouen, Nice and then Lille and Aix-Marseille.

They did well without it

THOSE who did not pass face leaving without their bac or redoing the terminale. However, they could take comfort from some well-known people who managed to succeed without it.

TV presenter Michel Drucker has been a familiar face for more than 40 years, despite never passing the exam. Nor did it stop retail magnate François Pinault, who left school at 16, from becoming France’s sixth richest person, worth more than e14 billion. Industry Minister and Mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi made his name in motorcycle racing and is nicknamed the “motodidact.”

Film actor and comedian Jamel Debbouze dropped out of school in quatrième (age 13-14) and has got by on his talent, as has footballer Zinedine Zidane, who was spotted by AS Cannes aged 15. Actor Gérard Depardieu left school aged 13. The only thing that interested him at school was literature.

Rapper Diam’s, who has sold millions, dropped out of school in the second-to-last year of lycée. French Prime Minister Pierre Bérégovoy (92-93) also left school before taking the bac.