In Toulouse, the bypassing of the school card becomes a weapon against the “ghettoization” of certain establishments
It is 7:25 am, at the foot of the large towers of buildings in Reynerie, one of the Mirail neighborhoods in Toulouse. It is still dark when about twenty teenagers get into a white car in the direction of Tournefeuille, a well-to-do town in the Toulouse metropolitan area, ten kilometers away. If some people complain about having to get up at dawn, to cross the whole city, that doesn’t bother more than that, Adam, in 4th grade, all smiles under his cap. “It doesn’t do much to me, it’s not that far away and it doesn’t bother me too much. This college is a bit strict but it feels good in it”, he says.
Bypass the school map, not to allow young people from privileged backgrounds to be educated outside their sector – as is still the case in the majority – but to help middle school students in difficulty, this is the experience of the National education in Haute-Garonne. It has been four years now that students from the popular areas of Mirail have been educated in upscale colleges in the city center and its surroundings.
Adam is not the only one to appreciate his college, yet located far from home. In all, two Mirail establishments have been gradually closed since 2017. They concentrated social, economic and educational difficulties. They will be rebuilt elsewhere.
In total, a thousand students in the sector are distributed in other establishments, more privileged. If initially there was resistance from some teachers and some families, hostile to the project, the solution is now suitable for 12-year-old Malik: “It’s quieter here, there isn’t too much fighting. I work a lot, I do my homework a lot, I study.”
In Tournefeuille, 115 “mixed” students are accommodated in this Leonardo da Vinci college, which has a total of 761 adolescents with, among others, families of engineers from Thales or Airbus.
It is a big challenge for teachers, some have been confronted with differences in level between students. This is the case of Anne Balland, French teacher. She has completely changed her ways of teaching, drawing inspiration in particular from what is done in CE1, CE2. “Writing simple sentences, with subject, verb and complement is not a given for all these students. The graphics are also not obvious. So we take the basics in more playful forms and it works. the results … when I say that it is mixed, that is to say that it is not up to what is expected of a student at the end of 6th grade. “
“In 6th year of a pupils who have not acquired reading.”
Anne Balland, French teacherto franceinfo
One of the differences, in the educational team, is that the part of these students, who are more in difficulty, must remain weak in order to have time to devote to them. The main one, Carline Sorbello-Diouf, sees progress first on the results of teenagers: “We very quickly allowed students to be in a positive context, to be with friends who are also successful and all these little people help each other. This is the first point. To find out if it is. is a success, we will see as we go along since I think we have to look both at the college years but also afterwards at the high school level. “
On the national education side, everyone welcomes this experiment.
The rectorate notes in particular the results of the patent, advanced, according to Mathieu Sieye, inspector of the Haute-Garonne academy:“On the results of the patent you have an overall success rate which is 63% on this cohort of students, when this rate was at 53% on the college which has now been destroyed.” Results on the rise but which remain far from the average, excluding priority education, from 85 to 90% of success in the department.
If the results of this experiment were globally positive, it would be possible to expand it. Initially, it was the departmental council of Haute-Garonne, which initiated this experience to fight against “ghetoisation” of certain establishments, In the words of its socialist president, Georges Méric. Today, he talks about the possibility of launching a few other projects, on the same model.
But it will be necessary to reach an agreement with the National Education, which finances the teaching posts in addition. The department pays for school transport and support for associations that accompany young people at different times of the day.