Word: bachot
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From the moment a French baby opens his little Gallic eyes, his ruling purpose in life becomes preparing for the bachot, the grueling baccalaureate exam that decides who shall enter universities and the grandes ecoles, and thus automatically become the elite that will some day rule the nation. The exam was over last week, and in Paris and Marseille milling, delirious teenage students overturned cars, pelted passers-by with flour, bombarded police with eggs, set bonfires on the sidewalks. They were celebrating the end of the pretest tension-and a lot of them were celebrating the fact that this year...
...Perception Proof? The bachot, or "bac," is drawn up by 30 eminent French professors, who submit it to the Education Ministry. Then the exam goes to the National Printing Office, where no printer sets more than a single line of type. The printed copies are kept in safes until three days before exam time, when envelopes containing the dreaded test are distributed to regional centers. At the same hour throughout the country, the seals are broken to start the trial that every French youth has worked toward for 16 to 18 years...
...Marseille this time, someone -possibly in the city's famed underworld-had cracked the secrecy. For at least a week before the bachot, parents and children happily paid as much as $300 for the three tough questions on the philosophy section of the test, which turned out to be: "Does perception provide proof of the reality of an object? Is it correct to speak of the lessons of the past? Is liberty of judgment compatible with the necessity of truth?" As word spread to 80% of the local students and to Nice, Corsica, Toulon and Paris, the price dropped...
Literate Civil Service. All in Paris and all state-run, the three schools last year admitted a mere 458 students. Getting in requires far more than passing bachot exams for university entrance. From the 50% of candidates who pass those stiff exams, a handful of the very brightest stay on at a lycée (secondary school) for two more years of study before tackling the even stiffer exams for grandes écoles...
French schoolchildren, who have long quaked at their formidable baccalauréat exam, last week were faced with an even worse fate-no exams. Demanding an $80 million raise, France's 325,000 teachers threatened to suspend next summer's bachots. For 180,000 lycee students, no bachot meant no entrance to universities, no draft deferment-and, for men, a possible call to Algeria...