The Baccalaureate: Know and/or Competence. A Degree to Redefine According to a Referential Basis Competences

We start from the postulate that, at the end of the general education cycle, the baccalaureate holder is expected to be prepared to undertake higher education, or even to enter the world of work. From this perspective, we propose to revisit the concept of “assessment” with regard to its objective dimension and in terms of knowledge and competence. This leads us to raise the following questions: What is actually assessed in the learner—knowledge or know-how? Furthermore, how does the evaluator proceed when assessing a competence rather than a body of knowledge?

The baccalaureate is a diploma that certifies the acquisition of competencies required for a given level of education and is instituted to serve an objective of citizenship. Being a baccalaureate holder thus refers to a benchmark level achieved by the successful candidate. This success, often taken for granted, nevertheless needs to be reconsidered in terms of its scope and revalued in light of its impact and its role as a reference.

The aim of this project is to build a culture of assessment that will materialise in the development of a baccalaureate framework, including descriptors that define useful and necessary competencies. To achieve this, it is essential to conduct fieldwork in order to collect the perceptions and practices of practitioners, namely evaluators, as well as those of the evaluated individuals, the baccalaureate candidates themselves.

This project will focus on the following objectives:

Determining the object of assessment: knowledge or competence?

Considering the baccalaureate as a reference for a common core

Developing a framework of basic competencies