Functioning Logics of Secondary Education Establishments and Failure of the General Baccalaureate of High School Pupils in the Me Region in Cote D' Ivoire

Failing the baccalaureate is a problem that has challenged the Ivorian education system for decades. Even today, the baccalaureate remains inaccessible to a large segment of high school students. This phenomenon challenges as much by its persistence as by its extent. Thus, the present research aims, through the case of high school students in the Mé region, to analyze the link between the logic of functioning of high schools and failure in the baccalaureate. This objective was achieved through a mixed study with a quantitative and qualitative component, conducted during the 2020/2021 school year by means of a direct administration questionnaire to a sample of 276 repeating high school students and by semi-structured interviews with the actors of the school system. In particular, parents of students, teachers, educational supervisors, and resource persons involved in the implementation of the region's secondary education policy. The results of the study indicate that failure in the baccalaureate results from defective capacity building of trainers, weak psychosocial follow-up, a failure to collaborate on the initiative of trainers with the families of high school students, and a lack of individualized pedagogical follow-up and remediation of school difficulties. In view of the prominence of the logics of operation of high schools in determining failure in the baccalaureate, there is an urgent need to identify empirically appropriate mechanisms for school support, which would make it possible to reduce substantially the failure rates. This aspect, which was not addressed by the study, is a limitation that potentiates future reflections.