Paris. Would the collective culture pass promote the diversity of cultural practices more than the individual pass? This is what seems to emerge from reading a report by the General Inspectorate of Cultural Affairs (IGAC) on the Individual Pass and the studies department (DEPS) of the Ministry of Culture on the collective pass. The figures should be handled with caution given the quality of the data, methodological biases and acquired behavioral habits. However, these initial surveys only confirm what common sense suggests: individually, we buy what we want, whereas in class, it is the teacher who decides.
The IGAC report is unusually harsh on the impact of the Individual Pass on cultural practices. It acknowledges that the usage rate is high – what 18-year-old doesn’t want to take advantage of the €300 they are given? – but that the Pass has not (yet?) encouraged young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to discover new practices. They mainly buy books. Moreover, the minister’s press release does not seek to hide this reality. The report recommends better editorializing the application and refining the recommendation algorithms, but will this change much in the attitude of a post-teenager/young adult?
Colleges and high schools have adopted the collective pass
At the same time, the collective part of the Pass is starting to take hold. During the 2022-2023 school year, the first full year, 81% of middle schools and 89% of high schools organized at least one artistic and cultural education action using the allocated amount. Remember that each class from 4th to 12th grade has a budget per student (€25 for 4th and 3rd grade, €30 for 10th grade and €20 for 11th and 12th grade) to use collectively. This therefore makes roughly an envelope of €600 to €900 to spend on one or more actions. 60,000 actions were carried out during this year.
The report does not indicate how many students and how many classes have benefited from this system, but if we assume that a class is made up of 30 students and that each action coincides with a class, 1.8 million students have benefited from it out of a total of 3.9. Not bad. The rates of use of the Collective Pass do not show huge differences depending on the size, location and area of the establishment. It should be noted that the public sector, large establishments and Parisians are the most interested. The only significant difference from the average concerns Corsica: only 32% of middle schools have benefited from it. Oddly enough, young Corsicans are also not very interested since only 39% of 18-year-olds in Haute-Corse have benefited from their Individual Pass compared to an average rate of 73%.
The figures from the Adage application do not yet provide relevant statistics on the type of activity “purchased” with the Collective Pass. However, the DEPS report shows that a large majority of these activities consist of outings to the theater and the cinema, which are more demanding practices than buying a manga. This is not surprising; for decades, middle and high schools have become accustomed to these outings. And we can trust teachers to increasingly take advantage of the Collective Pass envelope to take their students to discover other horizons.
The DEPS report also provides some figures on the amounts spent. They roughly correspond to the envelope allocated to each class, even if the report clearly states that the figures cannot be compared. The average budget spent per student is €13 in middle schools and €15 in high schools, compared to the €300 for the Individual Pass.
If any government were looking to make savings on Culture, it could easily eliminate the Individual Pass (€240 million) and reallocate part of the budget to the Collective Pass (€50 million). The Court of Auditors is due to submit its own report on the Pass soon. It should confirm the diagnosis on the Individual Pass.
