It has become a ritual. From now on, every time the results of international investigations are announced, Rue de Grenelle summons the press to try to clear the ground. “Let us guard against any triumphalism, but, after the regular decline recorded in recent years, the results have stabilized,” declared the Ministry of National Education, on December 3, in response to the results of the Timss survey. (“Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study”) 2023, which assesses the mathematics and science achievement of students around the world. However, it’s difficult to go lower! French CM1 and IV pupils are still among the bottom of the class in the European Union. This “curse of maths” has become a real headache for the – many – ministers who have paraded in recent years under the bicentennial plane tree in the garden of the Rochechouart hotel.
The concern of governments faced with worrying results in maths is not new. “Awareness really came about ten years ago when we realized that even the best level, our future elite, was concerned,” analyzes Pierre Mathiot, architect of the bac and high school reform. Shortly after his arrival at Rue de Grenelle, in 2017, Jean-Michel Blanquer entrusted a mission on the teaching of mathematics to Cédric Villani, Fields medal-winning mathematician, then LREM deputy, and to Charles Torossian, inspector general expert in this discipline. The result is a large-scale plan bringing together 21 measures, with, at the heart of the reactor, a teacher training system organized in “constellations”, that is to say by groups. This system, generally well received by specialists, will only be able to bear fruit in the long term. “And to be fully effective, it would require that we release greater resources, that we promote the autonomy of establishments, but also that we put in place a public evaluation system,” lists Charles Torossian.
In 2022, a new controversy over math arises. In a column published by the magazine Challenges, 30 big bosses are alarmed by the drop in the number of hours devoted to this discipline in first and final year since the high school reform led by Jean-Michel Blanquer. “Contrary to what was said at the time, the idea was not to make mathematics disappear but to integrate it into a whole called ‘scientific education’ with life and Earth sciences and physics -chemistry”, recalls Pierre Mathiot. Alas, for various reasons, these last two disciplines have taken precedence over the first. “I say it with regret, but this idea was too innovative and poorly adapted to current realities on the ground,” confides former inspector general Jean-Charles Ringard. Jean-Michel Blanquer has bitter memories of this period during which even Emmanuel Macron turned his back on him. “It had become fashionable to shoot the pianist. And the pianist was me. I was looking for a historical example of another conductor who would have scuttled his own record out of resentment towards the one who had helped him to accomplish, and I hardly saw any,” he says in his book The Citadel (Albin Michel, 2024).
“For a common mathematical culture”
After his departure, the math file landed on the desk of his successor, Pap Ndiaye. “Jean-Michel Blanquer made a mistake, and mistakes can be corrected,” people around him whispered. “It was very clear in my mind that we could not let a good number of students – those who had not chosen this specialty – stop taking maths at the end of second year! This is why I worked to restore an hour and a half of lessons per week for them”, explains Pap Ndiaye to L’Express. This was one of the promises of Emmanuel Macron’s second presidential campaign, who, moreover, will announce the reform himself during a trip to Marseille on June 2, 2022.
A few months earlier, in March, a committee of experts including Pierre Mathiot, Jean-Charles Ringard, but also the president of the Scientific Council of National Education, Stanislas Dehaene, defended the so-called “citizen” idea of a common mathematical culture. Hence the need, according to them, to provide this new hour and a half of mathematics to all students. “The General Directorate of School Education, which made its calculations and concluded that this required too large a pool of teachers, did not follow us,” laments Jean-Charles Ringard. The other challenge consists, at the same time, of taking the best students to a high level to meet the economic challenges of the future. “These two essential objectives, encouraging excellence and offering minimal background to everyone, tend to merge and intertwine, hence this permanent vagueness on the strategies to adopt,” regrets this former rector.
On December 5, 2023, the day of publication of the conclusions of the international program for monitoring student achievement (Pisa), which confirms France’s poor results, Gabriel Attal, Minister of Education since the summer, in turn lists a succession of measures. Its famous “clash of knowledge” notably provides for the establishment of groups of needs in French and maths in middle school. But also the study of fractions from CE1 and no longer in CM1, as was the case until then. “Progress in my opinion, since students will benefit from two additional years, necessary to better master this fundamental multiplicative concept,” greets Monica Neagoy, member of the Scientific Council of National Education, specialist in maths. Gilles Halbout, former rector of Mayotte and Orléans-Tours, was then one of the most influential advisors. After working alongside Gabriel Attal at Matignon, this mathematics professor has since joined Emmanuel Macron’s office.
The worrying dropout of girls
The Timss 2023 survey highlighted a blind spot in policies dedicated to maths: the worrying dropout of girls from early grades. In CM1, the gap between boys and girls in mathematics is now 23 points, compared to 13 in 2019. This is the most worrying score in the European Union. “This trend is not a French exception since it is true throughout the world and is undoubtedly partly explained by the Covid episode,” explains Charles Torossian. In February 2022, several learned societies and mathematics associations had also denounced the fact that, since the baccalaureate reform, high school girls were turning away from maths. “But we often fail to say that those who choose scientific courses in first and final year are more likely than before to continue on this path once in higher education,” says Pierre Mathiot.
The battle of numbers rages between the experts, inexhaustible on the various very technical blockages explaining the low level in maths: overly literary profiles of school teachers, weakness of training, incessant changes of programs… Vast project. “However, under the pressure of public opinion, successive ministers are multiplying the announcement effects which make it possible to switch to the 8 p.m. news and make people believe that everything will change. In reality, these display measures only destabilize the system”, deplores Alain Boissinot, former rector of the Versailles academy, who pleads for a longer-term vision. And the specialist clarifies: “The countries which have obtained results are those which have had the wisdom, sometimes despite political alternations, to carry out work and effort over time.” The key to solving the equation?
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