Five years after the launch of the social mix program in the colleges of Haute-Garonne, the Jean Jaurès foundation draws up an initial positive assessment. Pupils previously educated in establishments in priority areas are 20% more to have obtained their certificate.
In December 2016, the plan for social diversity in colleges was launched by then Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem. Since then, 17 departments have initiated local public policies to fight against inequalities and social segregation in colleges. Five years later, the experiment carried out in Haute-Garonne seems to be succeeding.
Membership of families
According the Jean Jaures Foundation, the first results are really encouraging, both in academic terms and in social terms. Marine Calazel, adviser to the president of the Haute-Garonne department, explains that “This encouragement is measured first of all by the adhesion of the families. Indeed, since the launch of the program, the families concerned have overwhelmingly respected their new sector of assignment. At the last school year, the rates of respect for the new school map reached 75% (Raymond Badiou sector) and 78% (Bellefontaine sector), against an overall average rate of respect of 60% in Toulouse.
Regarding school results, two cohorts of students who benefited from this system passed the national patent diploma (DNB) in June 2021 and June 2022, i.e. after four and five years of implementation.
Their results are clearly superior to those of their elders, formerly educated at the Badiou college in the Mirail district: 63% of students in 2021 and 70.6% in 2022 obtained their patent where the proportion was only 50% of success for students educated at Badiou college (+ 13 points).
Four out of five students have chosen to enter the secondary school in the sector attached to the host college. More than half chose a general stream orientation:
– 54.1% entered general and technical second (compared to 52.4% in 2021);
– 33.8% entered secondary vocational school (compared to 35% in 2021);
– 3.8% entered CAP (compared to 7% in 2021);
– 3.8% repeated a grade (3% in 2021).
Isabelle Bertolino, doctoral student in education sciences, studies the issues of student socialization. A research work, in which 60 people (pupils, parents, teachers, neighborhood associations) have taken part since the start of the project.
Its final evaluation report will be submitted in the spring of 2023. However, trends are emerging:
– the students’ sense of belonging to their host institution
– the use of support networks between students
– the autonomy of the pupils in the means of transport
– cultural openness
The real positive effect that is already visible is therefore the autonomy acquired by the Mirail students who have learned mobility; this mobility which gives the freedom to choose and to feel free to go everywhere and to plan for the future to live or work outside of one’s neighbourhood.
Isabelle Bertolino, doctoral student in education sciences
Five years after the launch of the program in Haute-Garonne, the number of colleges classified as a reinforced priority education network has dropped from 5 to 3.
