A French end-of-school marking mix-up

The academic year is over in France, the baccalauréat exams have been sat and the results published, and students up and down the country have, depending on how they fared of course, been rejoicing (or not) and making plans for their future.

Except for around 800 of them in the Ile de France region, the area including and surrounding the capital, who received the wrong results and will have to wait a little longer to find out how they did.

Even the most brilliant of students can crack under exam pressure, but when around 800 end up with grades totally out of keeping with their academic records, suspicions are, not surprisingly, quickly roused.

Such has been the case in and around Paris over the past week, where the results of students having sat the baccalauréat, or bac as it's more "affectionately" and popularly known here, didn't quite tally with what had been expected.

Last Friday the results were published on the Internet, and there were some surprises, not necessarily pleasant ones, not just for the students, but also parents and teachers, in the results the French paper - of all things.

And among the schools left scratching their heads over what could have happened were some of the capital's most prestigious lycées including Henri IV, Louis-le-Grand, Claude-Monet and Stanislas.

"Around a dozen students rang to say how surprised they had been to find out that they hadn't done as well as they had expected," said Daniel Chapellier, the director of the Stanislas lycée.

"Similarly there were those who had pretty average results throughout the academic year who were surprised at how well they had done," he added.

Then there was the peculiarity of two students (again) from the Stanislas lycée, who were informed that they had been absent from the exams, even though they had in fact sat them!

A case not unfamiliar to those who remember a similar story covered here a couple of weeks ago.

A couple of anomalies and subsequent complaints might well be expected, especially as around 331,000 students sat the bac in France this year. But when there are around 800 cases, all concentrated in one particular area, there's likely to be something awry.

In stepped the le service interacadémique des examens et concours, which discovered that lo and behold there had indeed been a mistake in the marking process.

"Investigations show that the results entered by a person, not a machine, had been attributed to the wrong candidates," said Stéphane Kesler, the director for the Ile de France examination centre said on Thursday evening.

"It's unfortunate what has happened, but the error will be corrected and the proper results released as soon as possible."

So those 800 students will have to wait a little longer to find out exactly how they did, the previous set of results - released on the Internet - will not count, and obviously for some there'll be disappointment.

It surely makes those of us whose school years are a dim and distant recollection, glad that those days are behind us.

Exam woes for French high school student

It's that time of year again; the one many of us probably remember with somewhat less fondness than other childhood events - end of school, examinations and the results.

Here in France around 331,000 students have been taking their baccalauréat, more "affectionately" and popularly known as the bac, generally viewed as the passport for entry into the country's higher education system.

Spare a thought though in particular for one 18-year-old from the southern French city of Toulouse, who has gone through an experience with which many, who have "been there, done that" can probably sympathise.

Last Monday, along with the rest of her class, she sat her English exam, and according to the regional daily newspaper, La Dépêche du Midi, was "more than satisfied with how she had done."

All fine and dandy, except the following day after sitting her Spanish exam, she was hauled in to the centre responsible for marking to be asked why she hadn't handed in her English paper.

She maintained that she had in fact given her copy to the invigilator but the problem was there was no proof that she had done so.

As La Dépêche du Midi points out, during the bac the only requirement made of students is that they sign a paper to confirm their presence. There's no system in place to verify that they have handed in a copy of their work.

Faced with something of an impasse and the threat of not passing her bac, the only option left open to her was to contact the director of the school and plead her case.

And that's exactly what she did, with her requests being heard to the extent that it was agreed that she would be allowed to retake the paper.

So it was probably with a certain resignation and understandable lack of enthusiasm that she sat alone in the classroom on Wedesday afternoon to resit the examination.

"Naturally I was upset," the 18-year-old, who has not been named, told the paper.

"I didn't have the same motivation as I had the first time and I didn't understand why I was doing it.

"They were telling me that I was being given a 'second chance', but as far as I was concerned I had already taken the paper and performed well on the Monday."

But of course the story doesn't end there, because guess what!

At the end of the same day the director of the school rang her parents to inform them that the copy of her first paper "had been found" and that would be the one that would count towards her final mark.

So "All's well that ends well" and undoubtedly there's relief all round, not just for the 18-year-old but also the examining board and the school, both of which had perhaps done her a disservice in the first place by insisting that she hadn't handed in her original paper and then generously allowing her to retake it.

Perhaps they'll take note for the future and install a (simple) system which checks that not only are candidates are present, but that they have also handed in their papers.