2023 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"
17th Edition
Department of Haute-Garonne: Haute-Garonne Department: Social mixing in secondary schools
In 2017, the Departmental Council of Haute-Garonne decided, in consultation with National Education, the educational community and the parents of students to gradually close two Toulouse colleges (high schools): Raymond Badiou and Bellefontaine. Conventional sectorization measures would not have been sufficient to create social diversity within these establishments, and the reassignment of students from these sectors to 11 more privileged secondary schools in the Toulouse conurbation made it possible to balance these establishments socially.
With the aim of co-constructing with the inhabitants equal opportunities for the success of all students, to combat social segregation and to fight against social determinism, this program, unique in its scope, has enabled more than 1,400 students to leave their "ghetto colleges", which are now closed, for 11 other establishments in the Toulouse area. Results: A concerted and successful social mix in middle schools, significant increase in patent success, higher averages, improved high school entry level. But also for the students, the feeling of living a beneficial experience and for the educational community other ways of working collectively.
After 6 years of implementing this social mix concerted with the inhabitants and the parents of pupils, the Departmental Council of Haute-Garonne and the Academy of Toulouse draw up in 2022 a first really satisfactory assessment with a leap of 13 points. of success in the results of the Brevet for the pupils concerned.
A unique, innovative and ambitious experiment, this concerted social mix policy is distinguished by:
- Its magnitude,
- Its long-term registration,
- The multi-dimensionality of the project,
- The sustained partnership with National Education
- The constant citizen dialogue with the inhabitants and the various actors.
Behind this approach, which is set to be deployed more widely at the departmental or even national level, the major challenge of the process undertaken remains the participation of the inhabitants in the development of social diversity in the colleges, equal opportunities and the republican inclusion through school education. This unique success breaks the national glass ceiling of double educational and social segregation. It restores its letters of nobility to public policies, made by and for citizens and to the role of a Departmental Council at the heart of the societal challenges of today and tomorrow.
Pupils, parents, teaching and education actors once again become actors of change and masters of their future, with a public power at their side to facilitate and anticipate.
By restoring citizens' confidence, by involving them in public policies, and by implementing an innovative and ambitious citizen participation approach, the social mix project carried out by the Departmental Council of Haute-Garonne has been a catalyst for profound changes in the educational policies and an accelerator of participatory democracy.
Taken as an example today, this participatory and civic approach proves that there is no fatalism where there is courage, innovation and collective intelligence.
Citizenship has no age. Building a future has no borders.
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