Published on 07/11/2024 at 08:30 Written by Pauline Saint
Stress, revision, memories of repeating a year… the brevet des collèges is the first exam in school. It remains a necessary step to continue your studies in high school or access certain positions in the civil service.
Do you have any memories of your secondary school diploma? Certainly not many, compared to the other major teaching exam: the baccalaureate. However, it has been a compulsory passage for all 3rd year students since its creation in 1947. In the five Normandy departments, 41,502 secondary school students took their very first exam in July.
“It was still a bit stressful to take the brevet, even if it is not the most difficult diploma to obtain”says Clément, 15, who feels “relieved” to have passed the exams at the college of Evrecy (Calvados). The teenager aims for a scientific stream at the high school so he had to “work a minimum” to maintain his level over the two days of competition, July 2 and 3.
The most difficult test for me was the History test, there were regarding twenty chapters to know by heart.
This year, the written History exam – one of the four compulsory ones, lasting 2 hours – focused on the Holocaust. The middle school students had to comment on an archive photo and a testimony dating from the Occupation. A period already on the curriculum of the middle school diploma when Ulysse took the exam in Caen, ten years ago.I wasn’t stressed at all, but I had lunch several times at my great-uncle’s house so he might tell me regarding the Second World War.recalls the 25-year-old, now a journalism student. “In my memory, they weren’t super complicated tests. I was in a class with good students and they all knew they would get the diploma at the end” he notes.
In Normandy, the results of the 2024 brevet are published this Thursday, July 11, in front of the school gates or online. Middle school students will experience this special stage of their schooling like millions of high school graduates before them.
Some, like Thomas, 37, would have preferred to forget this moment. “I arrived at college covered in spots on my face and body because of an allergic reaction. I had a girlfriend at the time, who I never saw once more and to top it all off, I didn’t get my certificate,” jokes the web marketing project manager. He finally got his diploma on the second attempt in Flers (Orne).
This obligatory rite of passage between middle school and high school, established at the end of the Second World War, allows − in addition to learning to manage stress and revision −, to access certain positions in the civil service. For example, it is mandatory to become an ambulance auxiliary, a prison guard or even a municipal police officer.
At the end of the 1950s in Evreux (Eure), Claudette obtained it at the girls’ college. “We learned a lot of things at school: sewing, singing, English, Latin and ancient Greek”recalls the 84-year-old retiree. On the other hand, she has almost no memory of the final exams of the first cycle: “The brevet was an important diploma even at the time, but not as important as the baccalaureate.”
Later, in the 1980s, the BEPC (first cycle of secondary school studies certificate), later transformed into the brevet des collèges (secondary school certificate), was awarded solely on the basis of continuous assessment. Géraldine, who studied at the Guérinière college in Caen, therefore did not have to revise for the famous written tests. “I was glad I didn’t have to take it. Everything regarding competitions or assessments always scares me.” says the fifty-year-old.
In 2023, the success rate for the brevet reached 89% in France, an increase of 1.4 points compared to the previous year. According to data from the Ministry of National Education, 86% of general stream graduates validated the general knowledge base − assessed continuously and which counts for half of the final grade −, compared to 63% of students in the professional stream.
