It has been one week since the results of the “Baccalaureate” exam were announced in Algeria, and without surprise, it was a mess.
Following my last week’s article and since I grew up and lived my whole life in Algeria, it is best for me to give its educational system as a concrete example since I am not really familiar with other countries.
In Algeria, you go through three major phases before getting to college: primary, middle, and high school. You go to primary school at the age of 6 (switched now to 5), and you spend there 6 (switched now to 5) years, then you have 4 years in middle school, and 3 in high school, and during your 3rd year, you have a nationwide exam, usually in early June, called the Baccalaureate (or BAC) where you have between 8 to 10 exams depending on your major and your performance is a weighted average out of 20 of your performance on each subject, which brings me to the purpose of this example.
In Algeria, your whole career and adulthood life is based on a 5-days performance, which is not something shocking (or is it?), but the problem is when the exam subjects you are offering are relatively easy (usually for political reasons, to buy the “social peace”) in a way that the distribution of the results is bi-modal, in other words, you have a big sample of pupils who get very good results and on the other side you get pupils who have average results.
In a supply and demand model, based on the performance, priority, and the list of universities/schools a pupil will choose, the top ones will usually get their first choice, and the less-fortunate ones get their second, and so forth, which does not seem so crucial given the fact that we need a scale to compare things, and life is not always fair, but this year, it was the last nail for our educational system’s coffin. Due to the pandemic, schools shut down and pupils did not have courses since last Spring, and we do not have the infrastructure to study from home, so the government took the option to postpone the exam until September. So in theory (I know that during a pandemic, it is not obvious to study), you have more time to prepare for the exam and also fewer courses, so even if you are an average student but with a good will and manage to have good preparation, you can perform well. And without surprise, that is what happened:
"This may shock you but law careers are for the ones who do not do well in BAC as opposed to the U.S. ecosystem where it is prestigious to study law".
Very surprising and interesting because it means that prestige and what we value is relative to the society you live in.
I've got that feeling that it's changing in France where being a lawyer or a physician, mayor isn't as prestigious as it used to be.
Exactly, another example is computer science engineers, they are seen as people that can only fix your computer, ignoring the fact that the current IT infrastructure is more than computers.
Julien Guyomard 3 years ago
"This may shock you but law careers are for the ones who do not do well in BAC as opposed to the U.S. ecosystem where it is prestigious to study law".
Very surprising and interesting because it means that prestige and what we value is relative to the society you live in.
I've got that feeling that it's changing in France where being a lawyer or a physician, mayor isn't as prestigious as it used to be.
Amine Riad Remache 3 years ago
Exactly, another example is computer science engineers, they are seen as people that can only fix your computer, ignoring the fact that the current IT infrastructure is more than computers.
Julien Guyomard 3 years ago
I'll use it in my next article ! :) thanks for sharing