This is a “slight decline” for the second year in a row, noted the Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye. Some 84.9% of candidates for the 2023 baccalaureate were admitted after the main tests, according to the results published on Tuesday July 4, against 86.1% in 2022.

Nearly 711,000 candidates took part in this 2023 session of the exam, including 55% in general, 20% in technological series and 25% in professional series. Among them, 47,200 candidates (6.6%) obtained an average of less than 8 out of 20 and were therefore postponed, while 59,800 (8.5%) will be able to take the remedial orals, which take place on 5, 6 and July 7.

“We say: ‘We give the baccalaureate to everyone’, it’s not so true, commented Mr. Ndiaye on RTL on Tuesday morning, specifying however that the figures would increase after the catch-ups. The tray finally regains a selectivity that it had been able to lose in recent years. »

Obtaining the baccalaureate on the sole basis of continuous assessment in 2020 had caused the final success rates to soar to 95.7%, an unprecedented level. In 2021, the year in which the events were also disrupted by Covid-19, it was 93.9%. The 2023 baccalaureate certainly marks a step back, but does not however find the levels of before the reform of the baccalaureate: during the last session of the old version baccalaureate, in 2019, the success rate before the catch-ups was 77.7%, and the final rate was 88.1%.

Admission rates, however, vary considerably between streams. Nearly 91% of general track candidates are admitted before resit, but this rate is 78% for the technological and professional series. The most significant drop concerns the technological sectors, whose rate of friends drops by 2.7 points compared to 2022, in particular for the series sciences and technologies of management and management (STMG), where the success rate is falling by 5 points to reach 73.4%. It exceeds 80% or even 90% in the other six series.

First edition of the reformed baccalaureate

For the general and technological routes, this 2023 edition was the first to take place as the reform of the former Minister of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, had planned. The final year students took their two specialty tests in March, the two major subjects chosen by each high school student in the high school year, which alone account for a third of the results of the baccalaureate.

In June, they sat the written philosophy (8% of the baccalaureate mark in general, 4% in technological series) and the great oral (respectively 10% and 14% of the mark), while the continuous monitoring weighed for 40% of the result.

However, this new organization has generated many difficulties in high schools. Teachers and students ran after time throughout the first part of the year, then the relaxation was general after the March exams, the marks being known from April.

The unions are calling on the Minister of Education for adjustments to try to remedy the absenteeism against which opponents of the new formula for the baccalaureate had warned, in vain. The Minister himself recently admitted that the current formula “is not suitable”. “We absolutely need to change things,” he added. Arbitrations are expected in the coming weeks.