François Bayrou's critical word regarding the post-baccalaureate guidance system

The Prime Minister called into question the much-maligned post-baccalaureate guidance system during his general policy declaration this Tuesday.

L‘early referral “is an error” and Parcoursup “is a question”declared Prime Minister François Bayrou on Tuesday January 14. “Children are not like leeks, they don’t all grow at the same speed”summarized the head of government in his general policy declaration, affirming that “the obligation of early guidance disturbs them and puts them in danger”.

“Wanting to select early, without the mind and expectations having matured, I think it is an error, in any case a weakness. And I think that in our school and university system, reorientations and changes in training must be accepted and even encouraged. he said before the National Assembly.

“If we rule out [les jeunes] from second grade, naturally we render the worst service to the nation,” he said again, seeming to criticize one of the measures announced by the former Minister of Education Gabriel Attal at the end of 2023, taken up by the Barnier government, to make obtaining the certificate in third grade compulsory to pass in second.

Questioned by LFI MP Marie Mesmeur on the Parcoursup platform, he also stated: “You are right, Parcoursup is a question.” “We need to open the doors, undoubtedly by inventing the period, the year of articulation between secondary education and higher education”he said again, implicitly criticizing the post-baccalaureate orientation platform launched in 2018, for which the wish registration phase will open the day after his speech.

On education, the Prime Minister again mentioned “among the battles to be waged, the promotion of reading against the monopoly of screens” or the continuation of “the major reform of vocational education which was initiated by previous governments”.

François Bayrou, however, did not make any major announcements on education, nor mentioned the 4,000 job cuts planned in National Education in the 2025 budget before the censorship of the Barnier government, a measure on which the PS had asked him to come back.