Should the system of ongoing assessment in high school be rethought? It was announced at the Ministry of Education’s back-to-school press conference that grades from the 11th and 12th grades would no longer count toward the baccalaureate. The statement raised many questions—and even sparked exasperation—among those working in the field.
These reactions are understandable, as there have been numerous changes to the baccalaureate assessment system in recent years. Following the adoption in 2018 of the “Blanquer” reform—which calls for 40 percent continuous assessment—the structure of the exam has undergone constant changes.
The years 2018, 2019, and 2020 were years of trial and error. The introduction of specific ongoing assessment tests (the E3Cs) caused significant upheaval in 2019 and 2020. Due to a strike by graders, simple continuous assessment (based on classroom performance) made a surprise appearance in 2019, with grades from students’ report cards being used instead. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic even forced schools to rely entirely on simple continuous assessment!
The common exams will be discontinued in 2021. In 2022, annual grade averages will be taken into account, and final exams for elective courses will be eliminated. Since 2019, only two exam sessions have been held under the same guidelines (2024 and 2025). Stakeholders feel a dual need: for clarity and for stability.
Why so many fluctuations? In a context where grades have become a veritable obsession for students and their parents—and with the pass rate reaching 91.8% in 2025, including 96.4% for the general baccalaureate—a “comprehensive review” is called for. Admittedly, when it comes to the details, the “devil” is in the fine print. We’ve had to contend with pandemics, political maneuvering, and social movements. But the real issue likely lies deeper still.
To gain a clearer understanding, we can use a “plate tectonics”-type model, assuming that the effects of friction between underground “plates”—which collide as a result of deep-seated dynamics that we need to identify, beyond the surface tremors and tensions—manifest themselves on the surface.
A Tension Between Support and Certification
In the long term, the assessment context is first and foremost the setting for a conflictual coexistence between two requirements, each rooted in different—albeit complementary—objectives. The need to support and facilitate learning and development as students build knowledge and skills (the need for formative assessment). And the need to provide social recognition of the possession of this knowledge and these skills (the need for summative assessment). Consolidating learning versus providing social recognition of a level of achievement.
In the first case, we could refer to the “GPS” function (indicating whether one is on the right track); and, in the second, to the “certification” function (socially certifying a skill acquired at the end of a training program).
The challenge here is to balance the two functions of assessment, ensuring that the requirements of certification do not stifle the effort to provide support. Hence the idea—which is welcome from this perspective—of introducing a significant component of ongoing assessment. The first challenge, then, is to determine the appropriate level of emphasis. The second is to find an appropriate form of ongoing assessment—simple ongoing assessment, or specific tests?
A Tension Between Decentralization and Centralization
The second set of “poles” represents a movement toward decentralization and a movement toward centralization. Their clash takes the form of a struggle between the desire to give more responsibility to local assessment stakeholders—with the goal of simple, ongoing assessment—and the desire to impose a centralized framework and model, with standardized national exams that are identical across all testing centers.
People often instinctively think that the second approach is preferable, as it would better ensure the objectivity of the evaluation. As far as evaluators are concerned, a conflict arises between two forms of legitimacy. Local legitimacy: that of the teacher who instructs one or more subjects within a school. And expert legitimacy: that of an external evaluator who, according to established standards, assesses the work completed in an officially defined exam—common to all—while ensuring anonymity.
The clash between these two “camps” leads to the debate over “local bias.” While we acknowledge the need for ongoing assessment, the real issue is whether—and how—we can avoid grading that is “at the examiner’s discretion.” It should be noted that in an oral exam, regardless of the examiner, the “student” will always be present, with his or her “perspective.” Furthermore, the high school graduation exam graders are all teachers, who will not magically free themselves from factors that may bias their grading decisions and affect the way they score exams.
This second tension thus presents a second challenge: for the centralizing movement to temper the questionable effects of localism, without, however, imposing rigid formalism or stifling local creativity and dynamism.
A tension between the race for titles and the race for spots
The third “aspects” are those of the exam and the competitive entrance exam. A conflict arises between two issues. One issue is the acquisition of a high school or college degree (the exam logic: the baccalaureate is the gateway to higher education). And the issue of securing a spot (competitive exam logic: the baccalaureate may—or may not—open the door to highly sought-after academic programs, where spots are “hard to come by” because they are limited in number and socially desirable).
The competition among students for spots in higher education has become the real challenge for applicants. It is at this point, in fact, that Parcoursup takes center stage. And in this regard, one could speak of a “Parcoursup-ization” of the baccalaureate. But this shifts the focus from an exam-based issue (whether or not to earn a diploma) to a competitive admissions issue (in high-demand programs, whether or not to secure the coveted spots). On an exam, you must pass to earn a degree. In a competitive admissions process, you must outperform others to secure a spot that others also covet.
Should we, then, distinguish between formative grades (for internal use, to assess and track student progress) and summative grades (for external use, to certify learning outcomes and include them in Parcoursup)? And should we even go so far as to envision two different report cards: one that is purely informative and contains all results, and the other that contains only those results deemed representative, and which alone counts toward high school graduation and the Parcoursup application?
The competitive admissions process gives the evaluation process a primary role in sorting applicants. This is the central task of Parcoursup: to match demand and supply as closely as possible. It involves reconciling a given variety of individual applications for educational programs with a set of differentiated spots in programs with limited capacity.
The ultimate challenge is to create the conditions for fair selection. To achieve this, assessment—whether ongoing or final—must clearly reveal the candidates’ actual skills and their level of proficiency! The key question is whether—and how—an assessment can objectively evaluate (determine) a skill and reach a conclusion… without making too many mistakes!
Thus, the baccalaureate, as an assessment tool, must face three challenges, the significance and difficulty of which make it clear that—due to the persistence and weight of the “friction plates”—the balances painstakingly established will always remain fragile. The exam formats adopted—which are always more or less “cobbled together” within a given context—will always be open to criticism. This promises yet more misunderstandings, exasperation, and tension…
