With the elimination of one of the two STMG classes at the Bernard-Palissy high school, 35 students will not be able to join the sector at the start of the next school year. Teachers and parents are demanding solutions.
In January, the management of the Bernard-Palissy high school in Agen announced to the management economics team the closure of the STMG (Management Sciences and Technologies) technology series from the start of the 2024 school year.
For good reason, a desire by National Education to reduce the number of STEM students at the national level by 50%, “because it is a path which would not provide enough post-baccalaureate and professional integration”, Jérôme told us. Gandois, economics-management teacher at Palissy high school, contacted at the start of the year. Instead, an ST2S section (Health and Social Sciences and Technologies) was to be created at the start of the school year.
50% of students on the floor
Opposed to the closure of the SMTG sector which, according to them, “attracted people to Palissy”, a certain number of teachers had launched a petition to keep it going. “We have around 80 requests each year for this sector. And 90% follow post-baccalaureate studies and find employment without difficulty,” explained Jérôme Gandois.
A few months later, the verdict came: one class out of the two is maintained for the 2024 school year, reducing the number of places available from 70 to 35. However, “we have 74 requests from students and for 51 of them for them, the STMG sector at Palissy is their first choice”, regrets the professor of economics and management. “What do we do with the 35 students who will not be able to follow the course they want, knowing that at De Baudre too, the classes are full?”
Nassim, in second grade, is one of those who chose the Palissy STMG sector as their first wish. “If I am not taken to Palissy or De Baudre, I will perhaps go to Nérac, but if that is the case I will have to go to a boarding school because I cannot make the journey every day from Agen… I’m crossing my fingers”, regrets the young man, who had signed the petition so that the two classes be maintained.
What solutions?
A few days before the results of the conditions, concern is also growing among parents. “We have children who were motivated to join this STEM sector and who will undoubtedly be offered to continue in the general sector if they are refused. The parents’ fear is that they will drop out,” reports Bruno Euverte, representative of parents of students at the FCPE.
The teaching team is asking for more clarification. “We would like to know what will happen to the 35 students who are not accepted,” says Jérôme Gandois. “We sent two letters to the rector: no response. The only response we received was sent to us by the deputy Michel Lauzzana announcing to us that one of the two classes would be maintained for the year 2024, but we still do not know not if it will be maintained afterwards.” The fight to perpetuate the STMG sector is therefore not over.
