The 2024 brevet exams begin this Monday 1 July for more than 800,000 French secondary school pupils. In future, these exams could become a real criterion for entry to lycée if the government’s desired reform becomes a reality

Nearly 860,000 secondary school pupils will sit the written tests for the brevet on Monday 1 July and Tuesday. The current government wants to reform this exam to turn it into “a real entrance exam for lycée” from next year, although this development is still uncertain because of the political situation.

The French and maths tests for the Diplôme national du brevet (DNB) will take place on Monday, while the history-geography and science tests (physics-chemistry, life and earth sciences, technology) will be held on Tuesday. The brevet, which certifies the knowledge and skills acquired at the end of lower secondary school, consists of continuous assessments and final tests.

The brevet is marked out of 800 points: 400 for the continuous tests and 400 for the final tests (French, mathematics, history-geography, science and oral). A minimum of 400 points is required to pass.

Potential reform linked to the “knowledge shock

Passing the brevet is not currently a prerequisite for moving on to seconde. However, in December, Gabriel Attal, then Minister for Education, expressed his intention to reform the exam to make it more “demanding” as part of the “knowledge shock” measures.

He proposed increasing the proportion of the final exams in the final mark to 60%. In addition, he announced that, from the 2025 session, passing the brevet would be a condition for direct access to lycée. Pupils failing the brevet would then have to join a “pre-seconde” class.

This “pre-secondary” class will be tried out on a voluntary basis from the start of the new school year in around a hundred French lycées, at least one in each département. However, the generalisation of this scheme and the reform of the exam for the 2025 session have yet to be confirmed.

“Everything is very uncertain”

The texts relating to this reform, which were due to be examined at a Conseil Supérieur de l’Education (CSE) on 4 July, have been withdrawn, according to Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, the main trade union for collèges and lycées. “We still don’t have the architecture of the new brevet”, she said.

“Everything is very uncertain because of the political context,” added Jérôme Fournier, national secretary of the SE-Unsa union. “Nothing is set in stone yet.”

The pass rate for the brevet is over 85%. Last year, it was 89%, up 0.6 points on the previous year, with around 757,600 schoolchildren passing.