The Impact on French Upper Secondary Schools of Reforms Aiming to Improve Students’ Transition to Higher Education

For a long time, the French education system has been characterized by strong institutional disconnection between secondary education (enseignement secondaire) and higher education (enseignement supérieur). This situation has nevertheless started to change over the last 20 years as the “need-to-adapt” argument has been widely used to push for three sets of interrelated reforms with the official aim of improving student flows to, and readiness for, higher education (HE). The first reforms relate to the end-of-upper-secondary-school baccalauréat qualification and were carried out in two waves. The second set of reforms concerns educational guidance for transition from upper secondary school to HE, including widening participation policies targeting socially disadvantaged youths. Finally, the third set has established a national digital platform, launched in 2009, to manage and regulate HE applications and admissions. These reforms with strong neoliberal leanings have nevertheless been implemented within a system that remains profoundly conservative. Changes to the baccalauréat, to educational guidance, and to the HE admissions system have made only minor alterations to the conservative system of hierarchical tracks, both at the level of the lycée (upper secondary school) and in HE, thus strongly weakening their potential effects. Moreover, the reforms themselves combine neoliberal discourse and decisions with other perspectives and approaches aiming to preserve and even reinforce this conservative structure. This discrepancy is evident in the conflicting aims ascribed both to guidance and to the new online application and admissions platform, expected, on the one hand, to raise students’ ambitions and give them greater latitude to satisfy their wishes but also, on the other hand, to help them make “rational” choices in light of both their educational abilities and trajectories and their existing HE provision and job prospects. This mixed ideological and structural landscape is also the result of a significant gap in France between policy intentions and implementation at a local level, especially in schools. Several factors are responsible for this discrepancy: the fact that in order to ward off criticism and protest, reforms are often couched in very abstract terms open to multiple interpretations; the length and complexity of the reform circuit in a centralized educational system; the lack of administrative means through which to oversee implementation; teachers’ capacity to resist reform, both individually and collectively. This half-conservative, half-liberal educational regime is likely to increase inequalities across social and ethnoracial lines for two main reasons. The first is that the potential benefits of “universal” neoliberal policies promising greater choice and opportunity for all—and even of policies directly targeting working-class and ethnic minority students, such as widening participation schemes—are frequently only reaped by students in academic tracks, with a good school record, who are mostly upper- or middle-class and White. The second is that, under the traditional conservative regime, in addition to being the victims of these students’ advantages and strategies, working-class students also continue to be channeled and chartered toward educational tracks and then jobs located at the bottom of the educational and social hierarchy.

The Influence and Response of Primary School Parents to Their Children's Learning Distress

Objectives: Distress is an unsatisfactory state of mind, and anxiety is its main manifestation. This research studies the learning distress of pupils. Methods: (1) A questionnaire survey was conducted on 543 samples to get the date about students' learning anxiety. (2) Interviews with 5 participants with anxiety symptoms and their parents to get the stories behind the students' learning distress. Results: 64.1% of the students in the sample were found to have symptoms of high anxiety. The interview showed that pupils were dissatisfied with their learning environment, dissatisfied with their academic performance and learning status, and they felt very tired and bored, even afraid with their studies. Conclusions: Poor academic performance, too many extracurricular activities, parents' over-concern about grades, and uncomfortable parent-child communication are the reasons for the learning distress of pupils. Parents do not pay much attention to the learning mood of pupils. It is recommended that parents spend more time with the company and educational guidance to help children develop positive learning emotions.

Link between Learning Strategies and Educational Guidance Needs – A Pilot Study with New Students at UNED

In institutions such as the National University of Distance Education (UNED), where students must take a leading role in their own learning processes in order to be academically successful, the learning strategies, understood as a series of cognitive, metacognitive, motivational, self-regulation, emotional and support aspects, take on maximum importance. In order to establish relationships between learning strategies and the educational guidance needs of new students at the UNED, a pilot study was carried out with students of the Degree in Psychology in March 2021, who responded to the CEVEAPEU tool developed by Gargallo et al. (2009). The data shows that, at the beginning of their degree studies, students have good learning strategies. In addition to all the initial information and advice provided by the institution, it is appropriate for guidance services to provide specific guidance on a sustained basis throughout the first year, cushioning the effect of changes that may occur in learning strategies, thus helping to prevent many dropouts.

Review about Online Educational Guidance during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost every area of our lives. It meant a break from our lifestyles, transforming everything from face-to-face to online. Among the places where this situation has become more evident are primary schools, secondary schools, and universities, which have had to adopt online teaching in its entirety. Faced with this situation, the work of the educational counsellors was essential to coordinate the centre with the families and to enable students to follow the classes in the best way possible. The objective of this study is to analyse the scientific literature about online educational guidance, with a focus on the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve this, a scoping review inspired by the PRISMA model was done. A total of 42 articles were studied. The main results show that many counsellors were at a disadvantage and in a very stressful situation, as they did not have the necessary digital training. On the other hand, this situation has been the first contact for many counsellors with the use of ICT within their profession and in an unexpected situation, without time for training or enough preparation.

Chatbot for Career Counselling

A chatbot is a computer application that is developed to prevaricate and process conversation between humans and digital devices offering the users an experience as if they are communicating with a person in real life instead of a digital device. With today’s customers expecting immediacy and actualization in their interactions with devices, the addition of chatbots as a communication channel has become critical to growing demand. This paper presents the design of an expert system for educational guidance for students available after SSC & HSC. This project is aimed to implement a web-based chatbot using Rasa NLU and machine learning algorithms that analyze user’s queries and understand the user's messages. The bot is designed to address the queries of the user related to the courses they should opt for and colleges that offer the course. The user just has to query through the bot and based on the inputs taken from the user the chatbot will accordingly predict a suitable course for the user. The system responds by showcasing the predicted course for the user. The user can access the bot without any pre-registration.

MODERN CONDITIONS FOR SOFT SKILLS FORMATION AMONG STUDENTS OF SOCIONOMIC PROFESSIONS

Modern higher professional education only stands on the threshold of reforms, related to the educational guidance aimed at the development of soft skills which are in demand in the international labour market. The basis of modernization consists of innovative transformations of constituents of the educational system, including continuous on-line education, blended learning. The development of universal «Soft skills» among the students of socionomic professions enables developing in a professional direction, building a career, and afterwards getting work in a successful organization.

تعليم اللغة العربية في الجامعات الصينية / Arabic Language Teaching in Chinese Universities: Inheritance and Innovation

The Arabic language is the common official language for the Arab nation, and one of the most important components of its identity, and it is also the link that connects the past of the Arabs with their present and their future, as it recorded the historical changes of the Arab nation over the course of the development extending for more than 1,600 years, and embodied its characteristics and preserved its culture and civilization through time. Arabic is one of the oldest foreign languages taught in China, and it played a pivotal role in promoting exchanges between China and Arab countries in various fields, politically, economically and culturally. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Arabic language teaching in Chinese universities achieved a remarkable development under the enlightened educational guidance, and succeeded in preparing batches of distinguished people who contributed and are contributing to the development of relations between Arab countries and China. After entering the 21st century and with the establishment of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum and the consolidation of Sino-Arab strategic cooperation relations, especially with the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative and the concept of “One Community with a Shared Future for Mankind”, the cooperation relations between China and the Arab countries have reached a new threshold on various levels. Simultaneously, Arabic teaching in Chinese universities has entered the path of rapid development and achieved unparalleled remarkable results.

The Role of University Administration in Enhancing Intellectual Security Among Yarmouk University Students

This study aimed at identifying the role of university administration in enhancing intellectual security among Yarmouk University students from the students’ viewpoint. The researcher adopted the descriptive survey method, and the questionnaire was used as a study. The study sample comprised of (385) students. The findings showed that university administration plays a high role in enhancing intellectual security, with a mean of (3.53). As shown the mean of “the role of the university in revitalizing the role of students in enhancing their intellectual security” is (3.75) and with a high degree, followed by “The role of the university in promoting the role of activities in enhancing students' intellectual security” with a mean of (3.43), and also with a high degree. Where the last domain records a high degree and a mean of (4.2) .The results also showed that there are statistically significant differences attributable to the effect of the gender variable, and it is in favor of females, and there are no differences attributable to the impact of the two variables "specialization and place of residence". In light of the findings, the study recommended strengthening communication between the university administration and the society and students to control the problem facing the students in terms of intellectual security, providing educational guidance activities, and disseminating them through the available media and enhancing students' intellectual security by providing university programs and activities, Connecting students to the prevailing culture in society and introducing them to the heritage of their nation, while spreading the spirit of innovation, creativity and brilliance, in response to developments and changes in civilization while not contradicting the foundations and constants of religious beliefs. And Training and accustoming students to discipline, good behavior, and the ability to understand the surrounding circumstances and deal with balance within its framework, wisely away from extremism and negative ideas.