On paper, nothing pushed him so much. Mother of a final year student in a renowned high school in the Paris region, with excellent grades in all subjects, Elise Masiulis readily admits: “Objectively, we had no reason to worry about our daughter. » However, seized with great anxiety at the approach of the choices for the post-baccalaureate, this executive from the medico-social sector decided to pay for the services of a guidance coach for her child. Six hundred euros for three sessions, started in first class. “A hyperanxiogenic context surrounds the Parcoursup procedure: we know nothing about the algorithms, I was afraid that she would find herself without any choice that she really liked”she justifies.
The mother of the family heard about the coaching from someone around her. ” It was a personalized solution and, in the anonymous mass of students, it was reassuringshe points out. Concretely, the coach mainly worked on a list of training courses that I could have done alone. That my daughter could confront her ideas relieved me of stress, but it is still expensive to pay, serenity. » In her daughter’s high school, there are many guidance counselors or teachers involved, but she feared that this would not be enough. “Competition between students pushes us to use the private sector to differentiate ourselves, it’s unfortunate”she laments.
In the wake of the launch of the Parcoursup platform in 2018, a myriad of private actors rushed into the breach of this anxiety expressed within families. While demographic pressure is growing at the entrance to higher education and Parcoursup crystallizes the stress around orientation, these coaching dispensaries and these lawyers specializing in legal remedies are doped with school anxiety. “Professionals told me very clearly that they saw a market to take”says the sociologist Anne-Claudine Oller, who was interested in one of the facets of this market boom, in School Coaching. A market for self-actualization (PUF, 2020).
“I was struck to see stands for private coaches appear in orientation lounges: it was very new”explains the researcher, who estimates in her book that the turnover of the orientation assistance market increased by 63% between 2015 and 2020. Asked by The worldin 2018, the founder of the Tonavenir coaching network, Sophie Laborde-Balen, gauged the increase in her activity “from 25% to 30%” in one year – a direct consequence of the arrival of Parcoursup. She is more cautious today about revealing her figures, but confirms that “more and more parents [les] apply each year, lost in the face of the multiple training courses and the increasing selectivity”.
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