Grandes Ecoles have been the pride of France for decades. 221 schools, members of the Conférence des Grandes Ecoles, issue 42% of master’s degree diplomas in France every year with a very high employability rate whatever the economic situation. Not only, more than 80% of young graduates of the grandes écoles find a job, three months after leaving school, but above all they have phenomenal career trajectories in France and internationally.
This success is due to a number of factors including learning practiced in a large number of schools.
Too often, learning is seen as a means of funding – which it is, but we must not forget also its pedagogical vocation. It allows students to combine theory and practice and to develop skills that they would not have been able to obtain through internships alone – This approach, in the long term, a little like the model of companionship, is beneficial for the students. student in higher education but also for the company that can test it on projects.
The results are in !
Learning in schools leads to employment. 15% of the graduates of the Conférence des Grandes Ecoles schools are trained by apprenticeship. More than 90% of them find a job directly at the exit of the school, for certain sectors, this rate is realized even before the exit of the school. In these learning programs, social openness plays out. There are twice as many students from CSPs – in the way by apprenticeship. The Grandes Ecoles play their role of trainer by facilitating social opening by diversifying the ways of financing tuition fees. They all provide a CSP + job to their graduates. It would also be interesting to look at whether apprenticeship training in secondary education leads to the same rates of professional integration and social growth!
Social openness, a fair and meritocratic model. The grandes écoles have opened their doors to all student talents regardless of their background and social extraction. We have multiplied initiatives nationally and regionally (the success strings among others). Today, schools receive 30% of scholarship students who pay only part of the tuition fees. The budget balance is ensured by the apprenticeship tax which completes this system.
This formula therefore has many advantages and must be developed, we are all convinced.
It is also the wish of the government that has initiated on October 25 a dialogue on this subject: “Our goal is to change the image of learning and to transform it in depth, to change scale and to make a path of excellence and success for all young people, “said the Minister of Labor, Muriel Pénicaud.
We could only subscribe and support this approach, but as always in France ideology and parochial quarrels are never far when it comes to reforms.
Some voices have since been raised recalling the stakes and the possible adverse effects of the proposals published in the press and on higher education institutions. The speech is rather appeased, but, our anxiety will decline when the frames, perennial will be posed together.
It is important for us to recall some important principles so that learning is seen as a path of excellence (and not a “garage” pathway in secondary school) and that, all together, secondary and higher, we can continue to fill our mission efficiently and without the repeated jolts that we suffer regularly.
What could these principles be:
The first one we can work on is the continuum of learning from high school to high school. This path, which should be linear, is not at all. In higher education, learning leads quickly to executive jobs. In secondary school, it is a little valued path in which young students often drop out of school. This sector does not lead to the results for which it was conceived and implemented. A strong political signal for learning in higher education is needed to show students and their families the excellence of this type of pedagogy, accessible to all and in a logic of professionalization.
The establishment of a single window that would operate as a meeting point for students, businesses and institutions in the regions. The idea is to reduce the gap between the training offer and the needs of companies. Too often, these two actors do not coordinate sufficiently in the regions and the Metropolises.
Then, let’s avoid angelism. It has been a long time since training has a cost, and an analy