It is a little music that does not date from yesterday: the teachers, fewer in number to apply for this profession hit by the downgrading, would be less good than before. Argument put forward: candidates for recruitment competitions for secondary school teachers have not been full, for several years and in several disciplines (French, mathematics, etc.); then the competition juries, forced to choose the winners from fewer candidates, lower the mark of the last admitted (known as the admission bar), sometimes to a very low level. Should we conclude that the level drops in all competitions and in all disciplines? The reality is more nuanced.
First of all, the number of applicants is decreasing “has a mechanical impact on the level of the competition”details Xavier Sorbe, the president of the mathematics cape jury – where only 817 candidates are eligible this year, for 1,035 positions. “When there are fewer candidates, there are bound to be fewer good profiles. »
Consequence: from year to year, the juries are therefore forced to “open up” recruitment slightly – that is to say, to lower the threshold beyond which a candidate is deemed too weak to be admitted. At the math capes, the admission bar was at 8/20 in 2021 compared to 9.5/20 in 2006 – at that time just under 4,000 candidates had entered the competition, compared to 2,075 in 2021.
“In mathematics, the admission threshold has not been falling for several years, and we are sovereign over this choice.defends Xavier Sorbe. There is no question of lowering the admission bar to fill positions, because it is up to us to guarantee the quality of education. » For this president of the jury, the fact that the competitions are not full is precisely a guarantee of quality. And to remember that the note of the last admitted remains that of the worst candidate: it says nothing about the head of the ranking, which has much more promising future teachers.
A “second competition”
In some cases, refraining from going too low is no longer enough. “Honestly, the level is very low”is alarmed a school teacher member of the jury for the competition of the first degree in the Créteil academy, who does not wish to give his name. In this academy, the mark of the last in the competition for school teachers would be 6/20 – which the rectorate refuses to confirm. “I see copies full of spelling mistakes, on which I wonder how the candidates arrived until the master. » This corrector ensures that the low number of eligible for Créteil this year (they are 521, for 1,079 open positions) is all the more worrying as “the instruction was given to mark broadly, avoiding eliminating the candidates from the writing”. Too much punishment for spelling is also prohibited – a maximum of 5 points can be deducted, she assures us.
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