Mirail students educated in “advantaged” colleges in Toulouse: a successful program
Initiated by the Haute-Garonne departmental council in 2017, the social mix program in Toulouse colleges is unique in France. Four years after its creation, they push students towards success.
Every morning, teenagers living in Mirail smoke the bus, heading for the center of Toulouse. Since 2017, a social mix program in colleges has enabled students in the neighborhood to study in “advantaged” establishments in the city. “I was in shock when I learned that I had to go to Emile Zola college. It’s so far from my house!“, says Nadej, 12, wrapped in a black down jacket.
However, after two years in this college in the Saint-Michel district, the young girl recognizes that she can have access to “a good job later“.
Driven by the departmental council of Haute-Garonne, the device concerns five colleges of Mirail classified “priority education network”. In total, 1,140 students from sixth to third grade have been integrated into eleven so-called “favoured” establishments in the pink city. Objective: to encourage social diversity. “It is a unique program in France”, specifies to AFP Georges Méric, PS president of the departmental council of Haute-Garonne, at the initiative of the project.
Even if the group is not homogeneous, the students progress. “Surrounded by rather successful students, these teenagers (from the mixed program) will tend to put themselves in the same dynamic“, is convinced the principal of the establishment, Fabien Boscher, pointing a”positive emulation“Their results in the patent examination were very positive: in one of the two Mirail colleges, which have since closed, less than 50% of the students passed the patent.”For the first generation of 3rd to have participated in the program, the success rate was 63%“, welcomes the president of Haute-Garonne.
“33% of the students in these areas obtained more than 12 on the patent average, whereas they were only 4.6% before”
But this integration initially worried the parents of students who feared that their children would be stigmatized. “They ended up recognizing with hindsight that it opened up new horizons for them, even for the 3rd grade stages.“, explains Malika Baadoud, head of the association “The school and us” deployed in the Bellefontaine district of Mirail.
But for the students, the social mix stops for the moment at the gates of the college. “I have friends who live in Busca, but we don’t go to each other’s houses. They live like in the movies, while we live in a neighborhood“, launches Nadej, 12 years old. According to the principal of the Emile Zola college, the ideal would be, in the long term, a “lack of distinction between mixed students and others.”