Regional development, career choice and territorialization of the training supply: Elements of problematisation

Due to the decentralization laws of 1982-1983, the secondary general and professional education and training supply progressively and partly became "regional". In France, "Region" refers to a political and administrative federative space of many different territories, which are linked to the French history and which do not necessarily have collective and democratic projects. The competence of the regions in education and training issues only concern upper secondary schools (high schools that is to say the so-called "lycées"). The region competences include buildings, equipment and operational costs. Diploma, curricula and teachers are always under the central State responsibility. Thus, upper secondary school education and training (at the high school level) is a global competence which is shared by region and State. In the framework of this shared competence, upper secondary general education and training supply are organized through territorial development by two partners, State and region. Presently, professional education and training supply are not completely adjusted to regional economic needs, even if it was sometimes adjusted to specific local ones (CHAMPOLLION, 1987). As far as teacher is concerned, it is presently not genuinely adapted to regional contexts (CHAMPOLLION, 2005). A pupil's career choice is influenced by territory through "territory effects" (CHAMPOLLION, 2005). For more than ten years, the French ministry of education (DEP, School Geography) has established that there are disparities between different educational districts (that are called "académies"). Nevertheless, these disparities concern more the different kinds of territories (for example rural or urban one) in a same region than the different regional spaces (DAVAILLON, 1998; ARRIGHI, 2004; GRELET, 2004 & 2006).