Dfrom the 1980s, the creation of so-called “local” preparatory classes for the Grandes Écoles (CPGE) broadened the recruitment pool to the middle and working classes from all territories and contributed significantly to the functioning of social progress in the French upper classes. education. Even as final year students begin the final phase of their wishes on the Parcoursup platform and articles on the subject flourish, it seems useful to look back on these hours.
Unknown to the general public, they are subject to prejudices – also very often outdated – about which we have “great preparations”. CPGEs are regularly accused of being too elitist and of being one of the main vectors of social reproduction. This unqualified criticism forgets the crucial role of local preparatory classes.
In some of these preparatory classes, the scholarship rate is sometimes higher than 50%. Local preparatory classes, whether economic, scientific, technological or literary, welcome thousands of students every year, sometimes very far from the majority academic and social profile in CPGE as in other educational courses.
Social ladder
The teachers, many of whom choose to teach in these local CPGEs for the variety of profiles they meet there, support students with the same interest to encourage everyone to go beyond themselves and very often to excellence, certainly not in the same proportion as the prestigious CPGE , precisely because recruiting there rhymes with proximity and diversity.
Thus, they fulfill the decisive mission of public service by truly operating a social elevator in a country where the weight of social reproduction is one of the strongest among the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
It is clear that this challenge has been largely met, as the vast majority of students from these local CPGEs enter a large school thanks to the demanding teaching and particularly favorable working conditions: staff on a human scale and a narrow territorial network that saves students from long periods of travel and expensive study.
The very existence of these local preparatory classes allows students, through their integration, access to grandes écoles or masters at the university and to life paths that they often did not even imagine. Without them, they would never have been able to fight self-censorship by applying to the preparatory class, which many mistakenly believe is only found in big cities and (that they are) selective because they are reserved for the authorized. National education thus, by the very existence of local CPGEs, fully fulfills its primary mission, which is to guarantee equal opportunities for all.
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