Vocational high schools: how Emmanuel Macron’s reform will unfold

Emmanuel Macron’s announcements, this Thursday, on the reform of vocational high schools, open several delicate projects. Overview in eleven points.

1. Accelerate training closings and openings

This is the heart of the reform. Each year, vocational high school courses close and others open. The training maps are defined locally with the regional committees for employment, training and vocational guidance (Crefop). This “mechanics” will not change, it is said at the Ministry of Vocational Education and Training, but the training cards that will be submitted to Crefop must evolve.

While today the logic is “accounting” – a solid training if it only accommodates three students, even if it is a training for the future -, tomorrow we will move on to “a logic of success, oriented towards the ‘integration’, one completes in the entourage of the Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye.

2. Indicators to attract students

But how to attract students to certain courses and divert them from others, deemed non-integrating? To “better match the evolution of the training map of vocational high schools with job prospects in the different territories”, the Ministry of Vocational Training and Education is counting on a set of three data, which will be published for each establishment: the rates of integration and continuation of studies by training, the professions that are recruiting and the economic needs by 2030.

“As the objective of any establishment being to improve the success of students, to better integrate them into employment, to better enable them to succeed in their pursuit of studies and to limit dropping out, all heads of establishments will have an interest in closing formations which do not insert and to open those which insert, ”says one in the entourage of Carole Grandjean.

The government wants to accelerate this cycle of openings and closings between 2023 and 2026. And to close “neither nor training courses” which, in the words of Emmanuel Macron, offer neither professional integration nor the prospect of further studies. Most unions denounce a “training” to employment.

3. Raising awareness from middle school

To attract students to the training courses that will open, the government is counting on a communication campaign but also on teachers from vocational high schools. Those who accept additional ***ignments will meet college students in their establishment to present the training to them, or will welcome them to their high school.

The discovery of trades from the fifth, to which Emmanuel Macron was committed during the presidential campaign, will be generalized to all college students from next September. The entourage of the Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye, is counting on this device “to insist with middle school students on the promising sectors defined within the framework of the France 2030 plan, and those which are in difficulty in recruiting”.

4. From September, 2,600 places closed

From September, 2,600 training places will be closed, and 3,000 others will be open. The closures will mainly concern trade and sales in Hauts-de-France, accounting and management in Île-de-France, support for managerial action in New Aquitaine, commercial management in Brittany or still the fashion professions in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.

“The regions will remain very vigilant in their decisions on the training map so that the closures of sections envisaged are progressive and always accompanied by openings of the same magnitude on professions of the future and on the same territory”, warns François Bonneau, in responsible for these issues for Regions of France.

5. M***ive conversions to come

The planned closures of courses will lead teachers to have to retrain, particularly in the administrative management courses that the government began to close during the previous five-year term, with the reform of the professional path implemented by the former Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer.

The unions are very critical of the way in which this reconversion took place.The latter could, for example, be redirected to the new business offices provided for by the reform to make the link with businesses and Pôle Emploi.

The unions of the FSU denounce a “transfer” of the professional path “in the pay of the professional branches” and the CGT, a government which wants to put the vocational high schools “at the service of employers”. But the strongest criticism relates to the “pact”, these additional missions which will be offered to volunteer teachers so that the school-business rapprochement becomes a reality.

6. A pact at 7,500 euros, what for?

Teachers involved in this pact will be able to receive an additional 7,500 euros gross per year, announced Emmanuel Macron. The investment for the professional path – which covers in particular the remuneration of the internships of the students – will be 1 billion per year, he indicated. Of this envelope, 285 million are planned for volunteer teachers who will accept this “work more” decried by most unions.

To collect these 7,500 euros annually, teachers of vocational high schools will have to agree to make short-term replacements for absent colleagues, work overtime in front of students and also two missions “not quantifiable in time”. For example, supporting final year students with Pôle Emploi, helping those who have difficulties in the first year of BTS or even working with middle school students.

“Such a teacher will introduce the professions to college, engage with students with disabilities, take a sport or theater option and, at the same time, he will accompany students to duplicate a French course, we explain in the entourage of Carole Grandjean. And obviously, he will make short-term substitutions. »

7. Students paid during their internships

For students, the most visible measure is that of the remuneration of internships, from 50 to 100 euros per week depending on the level of study. The sum of 100 euros will also apply to students on internship who choose additional mentions after the baccalaureate, these bac+1 training courses touted by Emmanuel Macron as offering up to 20 additional employability points.

8. No more short courses after the baccalaureate

For senior high school students who want to continue their studies after the baccalaureate, the government wants to develop bac+1 training. By September 2026, the number of places in specialization training at bac+1 must increase from 4,500 to 20,000. This specialization of high school students in a particular field should “multiply their chances of being recruited”, and allow “companies to come into contact with those who are destined to become future candidates for recruitment”, according to the ministry.

Today there are around thirty different additional mentions which concern 4,500 students or apprentices, out of the 230,000 students in their final year of vocational training.

9. Company offices in all high schools

The measure must apply everywhere at the start of the next school year to offer “an entry point” in high schools “for each company in the territory”, ***ures the Ministry of Education which will open a recruitment campaign this spring.

The 2,100 business offices – one in each high school – will have to seek economic partners, support young people in their internships, involve professionals in the activities of the establishment and participate in the preparation of changes to the training map.

10. Company-trained teachers

The government wants teacher training in vocational high schools “deeply renewed”, to “meet new needs, in connection with the evolution of the training map”.

Every three years at least, the teachers of vocational subjects will have to train in a company or in a campus of trades and qualifications. Teachers must also be trained in the social and behavioral skills to be transmitted to high school students (“knowing how to create, innovate, solve new problems, decide in a collective situation”).

11.They can then be directed to second-chance schools or establishments for integration into employment (EPIDE), while retaining their student status and the possibility of returning to their high school.