Reducing truancy rates in French high schools

A trial begins on Monday in France to try to cut the truancy rate among students at vocational high schools.

Playing hookey, skiving off, cutting class or whatever you want to call it, is apparently an increasing problem in France, with figures from a 2007-2008 study putting the rate among the country's roughly one thousand lycées professionnels, or vocational high schools, at 8.2 per cent.

In an effort to bring down the level, three schools in the Ile de France region surrounding the French capital will be taking part in a pilot scheme of rewarding attendance with money.

Each class at the three schools will be allocated an initial sum of €2,000 with the promise of being able to "earn" up to €10,000 by the end of the academic year depending on how well they have collectively managed to keep to the agreement of increasing attendance rates.

What happens to the money amassed at the end of the year will be determined collectively by the students and teaching staff at the school from the beginning of the project.

The scheme has come in for some criticism especially from those who feel it inappropriate that students be paid to attend class, but speaking on national radio, Martin Hirsch, the junior minister for active solidarities against poverty and for young people, stressed the collective rather than individual nature of how the pool of money could be earned.

"We're trying something new," he said.

"There are schools where the truancy rate is anything from five to 80 percent and this sort of financial scheme already works in other countries," he added.

"The project to be financed at the end of the year must be an educative one," he continued.

"It could be a school trip, the creation of an association, or the purchase of computer equipment or sports material for the class as a whole."

But not everyone is as enthusiastic about the idea as the minister.

Jean-Paul Huchon, the president of the regional council for Ile de France region and a member of the Socialist party, thinks that it could in fact have the opposite effect to the one intended.

Instead of giving students collective responsibility in an effort to try to reduce truancy rates, Huchon thinks the scheme might potentially lead to an increase in violence in the institutions.

"Far from giving students a sense of responsibility, the setting up of a scheme of a 'collective kitty' could in fact foster a feeling of injustice among classes and different courses of study within the same school," he said.

"And that (feeling of injustice) could also lead to a growth in violence within the school."

If the pilot scheme proves successful, it is expected to be extended to another 70 classes (around 2,000 students) at institutions throughout France in the year 2010-2011, at a budget of €560,000.