The
final four years of formal schooling are open to all holders of the
Diplôme de Fin d’Etudes de
l’Enseignement de BaseEnseignement secondaire and focus on
preparing students for university-level studies or entry into the
workforce.
(secondary education) is divided into two two-year stages: general
academic and specialized education. Students choose, or are
placed into, one of six streams which will partly determine the
university programs a student is eligible for if he/she chooses to
pursue tertiary studies.
In
the academic stream, all students follow a common curriculum (tronc
commun) during the first two years,
after which they choose one of five specializations from: language
arts (lettres),
mathematics, technical sciences, experimental sciences, and economics
and management. The language of instruction in technical, scientific
and mathematical fields is French; with the exception of foreign
languages, all others are taught in Arabic.
Students are
evaluated on a cumulative basis, with end-of-year grades calculated
as an average of all end-of-trimester grades. As in the
basic-education cycle, students must score more than 10 out of 20 as
an average across all subject areas to progress to the next grade
level. Students may repeat a year in the secondary cycle just once
or, in certain cases, twice if the second repeat is in the final year
of studies.
At
the end of the fourth year of secondary studies students take the
Examen National du Baccalauréat
(baccalaureate exam). Students are examined in an average of six
subjects, each of which is assigned a coefficient
(weighting) depending on the stream. Students who complete the
secondary cycle, but fail the baccalauréat
are awarded a certificate of completion that can be used for entry
into the workforce or for entry to further studies at a private
school.
In
1995, the last year for which statistics are available, 42.5 percent
of baccalauréat
takers were successful. Students who pass the baccalaureate are
guaranteed a place at university, although not necessarily in the
discipline of their choosing.
