Parcoursup is today a platform that has proven itself. It is easy to use and offers all the necessary information on the characteristics of the targeted training courses. Despite everything, it continues to be the subject of numerous criticisms linked in particular to the anxiety for young people of not knowing in advance whether they have a chance of being accepted by training.
This results in a feeling of injustice, reinforced by incomprehension when certain students from the same establishment with very similar profiles are taken and others are not. This feeling nourishes the myth of a mysterious algorithm which would decide in place of humans. However, the platform code has been published since day one.
Everything happens as if Parcoursup had become a mythological monster which would allocate places according to indecipherable principles. There is no point repeating that this is not the case. Instead, let’s take this feeling seriously to analyze it.
A lack of education to choose from
From a factual point of view, it is true that the choices of the teacher-researchers who make up the selection committees are based on a combination of factors which cannot be reduced to an easy-to-communicate equation. Certainly, if we have to classify candidates in this way, it is because there are not enough places in the most requested training courses. We could return to this subject, but the issue is rather to understand why the rite of passage that Parcoursup has become is so painful for young people.
First, the number of training courses offered is far greater than what a human being can imagine. This theoretical opening of possibilities prevents us from projecting ourselves into a concrete future and activates the fear of making a bad choice. This excessive fear is itself the result of a lack of education in choice. Without preparation, students feel like they are gambling with their future on Parcoursup.
A progressive orientation education approach based on a clear skills framework can significantly reduce these anxieties. This is what the Avenir(s) public platform deployed by Onisep offers free of charge, and is available to all secondary school students. All that remains is to ensure that they are well supported in its use to reap all the benefits.
Not everything is decided with Parcoursup
But, more fundamentally, these anxieties are strong because they reflect the issues hidden behind this social selection. “Failing your Parcoursup” seems definitive because, beyond the risk of not obtaining the courses that lead to dream jobs, it is above all feeling a personal failure: that of not having been sufficiently meritorious, of not having had good enough grades. All that matters here is the competition for places in a world where failure would condemn you for life.
This social pressure also affects the attention paid to the content of teaching. High school students focus on the effectiveness of their strategy to obtain the “best” possible education. This sometimes results in a loss of meaning, further accentuated by the feeling of randomness described above. And once they get to higher education, some students who got what they wanted sometimes discover that they don’t like it. Others are passionate about training which was only a second choice.
They also realize that there are possible bridges and that we can change paths. Finally, there is not always a link between the diploma obtained and the professional career pursued afterwards. So not everything is decided with Parcoursup! The fact that this orientation platform, which is only a tool, arouses so many emotions can only question us.
A social bond damaged by exclusion
Wouldn’t this be the scapegoat of an education system based on competition? The anxiety expressed at this moment of transition to higher education is a continuation of what has been happening since middle school: the orientation is presented as an informed choice, but it is experienced as an eviction from the main road towards sidings. Young people feel that there is not room for everyone and that you have to be better than others to truly have the right to choose your path.
It is time to rethink this place of competition in our education system. It is a source of suffering and destructive of meaning. It creates a fear of failure and gives the illusion that there is a main path to success in life. Above all, it is unsuitable for our world in profound transformation: it does not prepare our children for the skills of tomorrow, where creative, collaborative and resilient capacities will be essential.
Reducing the spirit of competition in favor of other values such as cooperation helps to anchor in everyone the conviction that he or she needs others to cope with complexity. And that eliminates that terrible feeling of never being good enough.
Truly leading each student to success requires refounding their ambition on these new bases and rethinking the direction from there. In this way, a social bond damaged by exclusion will be rebuilt. And this will ensure the participation of all in the French economy at a time when demographic decline is raising fears of labor shortages.
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