Concours général
The Concours général ( General Competition ) is a national competition in French education. It has existed since 1747. It serves to determine the best students in the final class ( terminale ) and the pre-final class ( première ) at the Lycée every year . The trainees can distinguish themselves in the concours général des métiers .
execution
Première students can compete in French, history, geography, translation into Latin and translation from ancient Greek. The students at the terminals can choose from the subjects Philosophical Essay, Bio- and Geology, Mathematics, Physics-Chemistry, Engineering, Economics and Social Sciences, German, English, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese and Russian. Some subjects for the terminals depend on the specific annual program.
There are certain schools that keep popping up in the competitions. These are, for example, the Lycée Louis-le-Grand with 13 awards in 2008 and 21 awards in 2007, the Lycée Henri-IV with 17 awards in 2008 and 14 awards in 2007 or the Collège Stanislas de Paris with 4 awards in 2008 and 7 awards in 2007. It but there are also numerous students from other schools who are successful in this competition.
Since a maximum of 18 students per subject are honored each year, this competition is very demanding. The awards are divided into the categories of price ( prix ) with a maximum of 3, commendation ( accessits ), a maximum of 5, and honorable mention ( mention ) with a maximum of 10 awardees per year compartment. In contrast, the number of participants can exceed 2,000, for example in 2007 in mathematics.
Prize-winning students are invited to a celebration, often held in the Grand Amphithéâtre of the Sorbonne . There the French Minister of Education personally congratulates them on their achievement.
history
The competition is largely due to the foundations of Canons Le Gendre in 1733 and Collot in 1755. The first award ceremony took place in 1747 in the presence of the Parliament of Paris and the later Chancellor Maupeou at the Sorbonne. The competition lasted until 1793 in this first period, when it was abolished in the course of the French Revolution .
In 1803 the competition was brought back to life, initially only for the high schools in Paris. Versailles was included in 1818 . An attempt made in 1838 to include the royal high schools in the départements failed due to the inadequate means of transport and communication at the time and was abandoned in 1839. Another such attempt failed in 1848.
In 1864, the then Minister of Public Education, Victor Duruy, found a viable option: the academies in the départements each organized their own competition called the Concours académique . The winners of these competitions then competed nationwide in the Concours général . The academies in Paris and Versailles continued to hold their own Concours général . The Concours académiques were abolished in 1880 , but the two-part Concours General , with Paris and Versailles on one side and the departments on the other, lasted until 1904. In the course of a political debate that year it was questioned and again abolished.
In 1921 the competition was re-launched by a decree by Education Minister Léon Bérard and at the same time participation was limited to the last two years of the Lycée. In 1923, the distinction between Paris-Versailles and the departments was abolished in favor of a nationwide competition.
In the course of the history of the competition, the range of subjects has been expanded again and again. The initial subjects were French and Latin essay, translation of Latin verse, and translation of a Greek text into French. Mathematics was added in 1803, physics, chemistry and natural history followed in 1830, and living languages in 1865. The technological subjects were introduced in 1961 and the subjects for the vocational baccalaureate followed in 1995. In 2007, Chinese was added as the last subject for the time being.
Famous award winners and laureates
Those who stood out in the competition include Maximilien de Robespierre , Camille Desmoulins , Victor Hugo , Alfred de Musset , Évariste Galois , Charles Baudelaire , Edmond de Goncourt , Louis Pasteur , Henri Poincaré , Henri Bergson , Jean Jaurès , Léon Blum , Charles Péguy , Jean Giraudoux , Jules Romains , Edgar Faure , Georges Pompidou , Maurice Schumann , Alain Juppé , Laurent Schwartz , Julien Gracq , Gilles Deleuze , Pierre Bourdieu , Volker Schlöndorff , Roland Barthes , Arthur Rimbaud , Jean-Pierre Chevènement , Jorge Semprun , Jean-Pierre Serre , Emmanuel Macron and many other well-known personalities.
Web links
- In French:
References and comments
- ↑ dissertation philosophique
- ↑ Literally sciences de la vie et de la Terre ; According to Sciences de la vie et de la Terre in the French-language Wikipedia, this subject replaced biology in 1994: “Cette appellation a remplacé celle de biologie à la rentrée 1994, et s'en différencie par l'incorporation de la géologie. »
- ^ Palmarès du concours général
- ↑ Dossier de presse de l'édition 2007 education.gouv.fr
- ↑ ministre de l'Éducation nationale
- ↑ ministre de l'Instruction publique
- ↑ baccalauréat professionnel