Key facts
- France's Education Minister Édouard Geffray proposed rescheduling exams to avoid extreme heat.
- He suggested exams should be held in the morning, between 8am and midday, rather than in the afternoon.
- The proposal comes as France braces for another heatwave with temperatures potentially reaching 40°C.
- Previous heatwaves have impacted students' performance and led to school closures.
- Studies have shown a link between higher temperatures and lower academic achievement.
France's Education Minister Édouard Geffray has proposed adjusting the timing of Baccalaureate exams to cooler parts of the day as the country faces increasingly severe heatwaves. The minister suggested that exams should be held in the morning, between 8am and midday, and that classrooms should be ventilated beforehand, stating that afternoon exam slots between 2pm and 6pm are no longer feasible.
This initiative comes after a heatwave in May caused students to swelter through their high school exams, with many schools lacking adequate shade, ventilation, and drinking water. The extreme heat has highlighted the vulnerability of educational institutions to rising temperatures. Last July, France saw nearly 1,900 schools close when temperatures surpassed 40°C in some areas.
Similar concerns have been raised internationally. The UK's Climate Change Committee (CCC) has recommended moving GCSE and A Level exams to cooler months, warning that extreme heat can impair student performance. The CCC's latest report noted that the UK is ill-equipped for its current climate and called for air conditioning in schools within 25 years. Research from Harvard in 2018 indicated a significant correlation between higher temperatures and lower academic achievement in US schools, a finding echoed by a 2025 study in Spain where temperatures above 26.7°C negatively affected maths and science scores.
France is currently experiencing rising temperatures, with southern regions already reaching highs of 37°C. Forecasters predict these temperatures will spread nationwide by Wednesday, with most areas experiencing between 32°C and 36°C, with only Brittany and coastal English Channel areas remaining cooler. This heat is attributed partly to hot air from North Africa. The EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service has cautioned that climate extremes are becoming the 'new normal', a sentiment echoed by Simon Stiell of the UNFCCC, who described the heatwave as a 'brutal reminder of the spiralling impacts of the climate crisis'.