Return to the “rescue system” in BAC exam but under certain conditions

Several independent education unions and the Federation of associations of parents have contemplating returning to proceed on the basis of a “rescue system” in the Baccalaureate exam, with the involvement of all actors of the education sector, to save the students who worked hard during the school season and not to leave hundreds of them in the lurch because of a lacking “half a point” in the overall average mark secured this crucial end of secondary school cycle exam.

The former Education Minister, Ali Mohamad, told “Echorouk” that the problem is not the return to the rescue system or not, but in the Baccalaureate exam itself, which has become, he said, an annual theme for “consultations” between the Ministry of education and the representative students on the final sections of the agreement on the so-called “threshold” to annual school courses strenuously required by many BAC candidates and their parents.

“As a result, this major exam has lost its credibility considering that everything referring to “consultations” depreciates its value, saying that the BAC is supposed to be a “crowning” of a 12-year-long school attendance for the pupils, with a normal curriculum applied rigorously every year by the teachers and headmasters”, he explained.

He further criticized the idea of linking the success in Baccalaureate exam to University entrance, which he described as “improper”, given that the certificate allotted is a just a certificate of end of secondary school cycle.

He also pointed out that the proposed “rescue option” would surely contribute to the boosting of the morale of hard-working pupils, adding that this option should be granted only in “extraordinary” cases, as it would ward off hundreds of helpless pupils from the streets by allowing them to delve into higher studies at university.

For his part, the National Secretary in charge of the information and communication office of the Cnapest independent union, Messaoud Boudiba, pleaded for the return to the “rescue system” as a necessary condition for the deliberations in the BAC exam in order to hike the number of laureates each year and thereby drastically curtail the drop-out rate among school pupils.