This Friday morning, the thirty students of the National School of Landscape of Versailles (ENSP), rubber boots on their feet, chatting in front of the historic premises of the school. Behind them, the king’s vegetable garden displays its geometric shapes. The atmosphere is laughing: despite the bad weather, they are impatient with the idea of the day’s “surveying” session, which comes to close this week of the workshop. In this year of largely distance learning courses, each day in the field is precious for these lovers of the great outdoors.
Old but little known, the seven French landscape schools welcome a total of some 600 students. Among them, four are preparing for the state diploma in landscape design (DEP), which confers the master’s degree (bac + 5): the ENSP, located in Versailles (Yvelines) and Marseille, the National Schools of Architecture and landscape of Lille and Bordeaux, and the School of nature and landscape of Blois (Loir-et-Cher).
The training starts with a two-year cycle, accessible after the baccalaureate via Parcoursup (file and interview). The majority of students then integrate, on file, the DEP cycle, in three years, up to master 2. It is also possible to integrate these schools with bac + 2 by a common competition, whose tests have just been revised. . Sixty-six places are offered this year – for a success rate of around 30%. A system of admissions on file also allows about thirty students to enter directly into a master’s degree.
Diversified recruitment
The other three landscape schools are more scientific. Accessible by competitive examination for bac or bac + 3, the training of Agrocampus Ouest (Angers), in five years, leads to a diploma of “landscape engineer”. Just like that of Itiape, in Lille: this private establishment, attached to ISA-Lille, trains in three years after a bac + 2 landscape engineers through work-study programs. In Paris, the Higher School of Garden Architecture (ESAJ), also private (count 8,250 euros per year), is focused on the study of living things. It delivers in three years after the baccalaureate a bachelor’s degree in landscape assistant, and in five years a master’s degree in landscaping.
Between the heightened sensitivity of young people to global warming and the renewed interest, in these times of pandemic, for the living environment, the sector ” has the wind in its sails “, wants to believe Michel Audouy, general secretary of the French Federation of the landscape. “If, for the moment, the number of candidates is relatively stable”, he remarks, however, schools have “Diversified their recruitment”, with young people who come from degrees in geography or environment, schools of architecture, horticulture, but also applied arts.
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