HAS the end of college, Esteban didn’t really have a choice. He who, after internships in tiling, wanted to continue in this professional way, was directed towards a cold-air conditioning CAP. Between disappointment and feeling of failure, he finally gave up before obtaining his diploma. An example that is far from being an exception.
If some choose their professional path of their own free will, many young people undergo an orientation that they did not choose. And, often, these are students who combine economic and social difficulties: 57% of these students come from disadvantaged backgrounds (compared to 29.9% in general and technological high schools), and only 8% are children of executives.
This is undoubtedly why the reform of the vocational high school, which will be implemented from the start of the school year in September, does not make much noise. While the slightest change in the general path can bring down teachers, high school students and parents in the street, the professional path is being reformed in near indifference. Admittedly, at first glance, offering to spend more time in a company to young people who are destined to quickly enter the job market after their baccalaureate may seem like an interesting idea. And yet…
So much time away from school
First, this desire comes up against a principle of reality: the difficulty, especially for young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, of finding work placements. Often isolated and not very mobile, without a network and far from company codes, many are already unable to find an internship, and therefore to validate their diploma.
Beyond these practical concerns, the idea of increasing the internship periods raises deeper questions: that of education and the chances that we want to give to students who are the least well off socially. More internship periods, it’s as many courses that disappear. So much time away from school.
However, the vocational high school welcomes pupils among whom we count the young people most affected by the school – those to whom it would be necessary to provide time to reconsolidate a course, rebuild self-confidence, reinforce fundamental knowledge. Increasing the internship periods means depriving the most vulnerable students of a global and ambitious education, and of a quality education, which balances practical and theoretical learning in a balanced way.
To be positive, we could welcome the government’s desire to finally pay vocational high school students during their internship periods. It would still be necessary that these meager allowances do not come to penalize the most precarious families, who perceive social minima.
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