lThe reform of the general baccalaureate is five years old. It replaced the organization of the baccalaureate in series with a system of “choice” that imposes a common core to which three specialties are added to choose from thirteen of 1Dreduced to two in the last year. The reform caused a massive drop in access to scientific careers, particularly significant for girls. It is accompanied by a loss of versatility that further reduces the chances of pursuing higher education.
Despite repeated warnings No systemic correction has been proposed to address the harmful consequences of this organisation. The lack of scientific training therefore persists in secondary schools, while the needs are increasing, especially in professions requiring a high level of scientific and technological skills.
Studying the effect of the massive reduction in access to science in secondary school on higher education becomes crucial to assess the country’s ability to face current social, environmental, technological and economic challenges.
Published indicators The figures for engineering courses at the start of the 2023 school year correspond precisely to the arrival of the first graduates of the reformed high school. They show a decrease of 11.5% in the number of new entrants, returning to the 2016 level with 42,239 students, compared to 47,745 in 2022. This sharp drop breaks with a regular increase for decades, despite the fact that the number of places has grown. It foreshadows a weakening of the level of candidates and a decrease in future graduates in 2026, in contradiction with the growing needs of companies. and the target announced by the government in its green energy plan in 2023.
The scale of this drop-out makes it essential to analyse the main possible causes. Between 2020 and 2023, three changes can be identified: the secondary school reform, which led to a drop in the number of science baccalaureate graduates from 2021; the transformation of DUTs into BUTs, which concerns baccalaureate holders for the first time in 2021; and the health crisis from March 2020 to July 2021.
The Covid-19 pandemic was global: its negative impact should also have been visible on foreign recruitment. But these are increasing considerably. Moreover, since the first lockdown disrupted the baccalaureate in 2020, a clear drop would have been observed from 2022 onwards; although there is a slight drop in new enrolments in the engineering cycle in 2022, it is eleven times less significant than in 2023. The health crisis therefore does not seem to have contributed significantly to this reversal of the situation.
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