Yesterday a two-hour long failure of key suburban train lines around Paris prevented teaching candidates from taking a test they had spent a year or more preparing for.
The prestigious and difficult agrégation d'anglais exam takes place at the Maison des Examens in Arcueil, normally accessible on the RER B line. However this line was closed for two hours Thursday, April 2, 2009.
Candidates must arrive on time to take the written portion of the exam which lasts six to seven hours each day for four days. If they fail to arrive on one of the days, they are automatically eliminated.
The stakes are high, as the top ten percent who pass will be attributed jobs for life as civil servants in France's National Education system.
Said one candidate trapped by the failure of the RER: "An entire year at university for nothing."
"Coralie a carrément perdu le bénéfice d'une année universitaire en ratant le passage de l'agrégation à cause du retard du RER B. «Partie en gare de Villiers-le-Bel à 7h25, je suis arrivée Gare du Nord à 8h57 complètement dégoutée, découragée après avoir voyagé "pire que du bétail". Je me rendais à la Maison des Examens à Arcueil pour le concours de l'agrégation. Toute une année universitaire pour rien. J'en ai gros sur le coeur.»
For more reactions to the Le Parisien, click here.
The agrégation is a national exam with the same content and jury for all. According to French tradition, the Ministry has two options: ignore the problem or oblige all the candidates to retake Thursday's exam (with changed content, of course). A valid case can be made for either approach.
While I have been a frequent critic of the agrégation d'anglais, all my sympathies are with the candidates who risk being deprived of the chance to pass this exam for which they have spend so much time and effort preparing.
