France is progressing, but still does not reach the European average. The international study by the International Research Program in School Reading (Pirls), unveiled on Tuesday, May 16, indicates a stabilization of the reading skills of French students, despite the health crisis linked to Covid-19. However, out of 57 countries assessed, while France is above the international average, it remains below the European average. It is “an increase” in student results in French “after years of decline”, welcomes the Ministry of National Education.
514 points, the average for France
514 points is the score for France, whose education system is placed, in 2021, a few points above the international average, set at 500 points. After fifteen years of decline, the reading level of French schoolchildren remains almost stable compared to that of 2016 (511 points), despite the Covid pandemic. While a large majority of the countries of the European Union (EU) show a statistically significant drop, on average of 11 points compared to 2016. France is however below the average of the countries of the European Union (527 points). France is also far behind Singapore (587 points), Hong Kong (573), Russia (567), England (558) or even Finland (549), which appear in the top podium.
+9 points for reading comprehension
The results of French schoolchildren on the most complex comprehension processes (“interpreting” and “appreciating”) increased by nine points, whereas the level had fallen since the beginning of the 2000s. At the same time, the results relating to the simplest processes (such as “taking” information or drawing a consequence) remain stable. Between 2016 and 2021, the French scores remain stable for the comprehension of informative and narrative texts. Despite a reduction in the gaps between France and the EU of 14 points on narrative texts and 12 points on informative texts, the EU’s average scores remain statistically higher than those of France in 2021.
In France, 6% of pupils are classified in a level called “below the low level” of skills, i.e. mediocre, compared to 4% for the European average. For the rest, 22% a low level, 40% an intermediate level, 27% a high level and 5% an advanced level (compared to 9% in Europe). Although the gap is narrowing with the EU average, France still has fewer pupils achieving the highest scores and more pupils in difficulty.
14 points difference between girls and boys
The Pirls study, whose tests are taken by 400,000 students around the world in 2021 or 2022, including 5,300 in France, also notes better progress among girls. In France, the score of girls (521 points) is higher than that of boys (507 points). This gap between girls and boys is found at European and international level. Girls score higher in 51 of the 57 countries that responded to Pirls, with a difference of 19 points.
The results of this mixed study for France also underline a paradox: France is the country where pupils have the most hours of official language lessons, at the rate of 288 hours (of French) per year against 228 hours elsewhere in Europe. The study thus indicates that French teachers say they dedicate 4 hours per week specifically to the explicit teaching of reading or to reading activities within the framework of other disciplines (144 hours per year), compared to 3.5 hours in the others. European countries (122 hours per year).