Will Emmanuel Macron succeed in carrying out a reform of the vocational high school often started, never successful? Traveling to the Eric-Tabarly high school in Sables-d’Olonne (Vendée), on September 13, the Head of State again detailed, in front of an audience of teachers and local entrepreneurs, the axes of transformation of this way considered too little “integrating”.
In the presence of the Minister Delegate for Vocational Education and Training, Carole Grandjean, and the Minister of Education, Pap Ndiaye, the president recalled that he wanted better guidance for middle school students – with the creation of “future half-days” from the 5the, devoted to the discovery of trades. He wants to establish an increase in the number of weeks of internship for vocational high school students – whose time in business will now be paid – and the greater presence of business actors within these establishments. Finally, the training map will have to be adapted to the needs of local businesses, accepting, if necessary, to close “non-integrating” courses and redirect teachers to other more promising disciplines.
This reform will pass, insisted the Head of State, by a new method now well known to educational actors, to whom it has been presented several times since the spring: debates in the field, which will bring together all the actors to propose solutions – variation, in the educational field and at the local level, of the National Council for Refoundation launched on 8 September. “We must not prevent this reform from coming into force very gradually”said Mr. Macron, promising “to evaluate, to look at what works, and what works less well”.
Sequence the stages
The main lines of this project having been laid down even before the start of the school year, the presidential trip to Sables-d’Olonne is struggling to resolve the questions it raises. The increase in the internship period, now paid, must be done by imagining “better organization of school learning time”, detailed the tenant of the Elysée at the Tabarly high school, worrying about the classes that are sometimes too busy in the professional path, which welcomes many students in difficulty. The president thus proposes to sequence the internships – so that the students are not all in the company at the same time – to have split classes in the academic lessons. An idea to “experiment”said Mr. Macron.
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