Zawaya

The credibility of the baccalaureate should be preserved

By: Mahmoud Belhimer

Baccalaureate exams are not the only major determinant in shaping the future workforce; the country’s development policies and plans are the ones that prepare – in advance – for the production needs of the economy and the society in terms of workforce and managers, according to a long-term vision seeking to build a strong training system that’s in harmony with these needs.

Before the baccalaureate, students are guided at the beginning of secondary education towards a number of disciplines that are supposedly consistent with the development objectives of the country and its potential. These disciplines also keep pace with scientific development in the world, and the demands of competition in the regional and international levels. Then comes the baccalaureate as a fateful exam having the task of “screening” students in the final year, so that the successful ones are awarded the aptitude to continue in institutions of higher education, while the rest are guided towards diverse vocational training institutions or directly practicing activities offered by the labor market.

The baccalaureate has been – through various stages of the educational system’s development in Algeria – a national exam that imposes serious standards for the selection of students and guiding them towards university. The workforce, or the managers produced by institutions of higher education, used to be more qualified, as the baccalaureate was subject to strict criteria, especially during the 70s and 80s. However, there are factors that have affected the credibility of this exam, essentially the increasing number of candidates (the number of candidates reached 599,702 students last year, with a slight decline this year), offset by a lack of qualified managers, and the urgent need for trainers of managers either in education or in other sectors.

The best success rate in the baccalaureate was registered last year (56%), but a lot of education figures called for not taking this ratio as a final indicator of the success of current reforms in the education system, because the latter requires an objective assessment and a serious review of all reform programs. The Minister of National Education, Mr. Abu Bakr Ben Bouzid, seeks to achieve a success rate of 70% over the next five years.

On the other hand, as long as the institutions of higher education suffer from the pressure of the census and lack of training, it is difficult to talk about forming a qualified and active workforce. Hiring institutions that receive fresh graduates complain about the low level of new arrivals and spend a lot of time in their rehabilitation. Also, the early stages of education complain about the low level of students coming from universities, which makes us prisoners of a vicious circle.

Accordingly, baccalaureate exams can contribute in shaping a qualified workforce, if there was no census pressure nor political considerations, to remain subject only to purely scientific criteria. Also, the level of programmes and their contents should be updated to conform with developments occurring in the labor market and in the fields of science and technology.

Thus, the baccalaureate can maintain its credibility and contribute to the upgrading of the overall training system, because it will produce students with skills that enable them to quickly integrate in the environment of the new training.