Rapid lycée reform needed says report

BETTER careers advice and changes to the system of different study options leading to the baccalauréat should be the priorities for a reform of lycée schooling, says a new report.

Just leaving things as they are would be socially “explosive,” according to report author Richard Descoings, who is the director of the prestigious politics school Sciences Po.

Mr Descoings, whose report was commissioned by the government, says action is needed because “the level of inequality borne by those who are damaged by the system is becoming truly unbearable… the republican elitism is ravaging a youth who are becoming more and more defiant towards the powers that be.”

He adds that “the imbalance of the different routes and options and what we call orientation (careers/study advice) are more and more resulting in a process of social selection.”

Areas to be dealt with urgently, according to the study, include better orientation, with more links with universities and workplaces and more “discovery placements” and reasserting the value of the technological route.

It is also necessary to rebalance the study options – S (scientific), ES (economic and social) and L (literary).

The science one is popular with “elite” students and the literary one is generally unpopular, so, for example, giving more of a “scientific culture” to the bac L would help, the report says.

There should also be a renewal of the baccalauréat language tests with a greater emphasis on the oral element and it is suggested that class sizes in seconde - the second year of the lycée - be reduced.

Mr Descoings calls for, in the middle term, “a very wide-ranging consultation on radical reform,” taking into account the views of lycée students themselves and negotiation with teaching unions.