Gabriel Attal in the starting blocks. During his recent and numerous interventions, the Minister of National Education never misses the opportunity to recall the deadline of December 5, 2023, the date on which he will make a series of announcements intended to “raise the educational level”. That day, the Pisa 2022 survey – a global study carried out in 81 countries among 15-year-old students – will reveal its ranking. The calendar owes nothing to chance since it is part of a skillfully thought-out communication plan. Faithful to his method, the host of Rue de Grenelle wants to strike quickly and hard, already ahead of the announcements of the OECD which, every three years, highlights the mixed results of our school system and insists on its unequal nature.
As early as October 5, during a long speech delivered in front of the François-Mitterrand library, he announced the establishment of a “shock of knowledge” mission, calling on stakeholders in the educational world to participate in groups work before “developing a strategy”. Since then, the minister has multiplied the declarations revealing the numerous avenues under study: establishment of level groups in classes, return to the organization of programs by cycles, use of single textbooks, bringing up to date repetition… But what are these different measures worth? Can they really bring about this much-hoped-for jump?
If the minister who is at the top of the polls seems to have won over some of the French, experts in the educational world seem more doubtful. “Behind the political branding and the somewhat provocative aspect of all these announcements, it will be interesting to see what real concrete measures will be taken. The minister will undoubtedly be led to qualify his remarks to make them less divisive,” warns Alain Boissinot, former director of school education and former chief of staff of Luc Ferry when the latter was Minister of National Education. On November 22, when he was invited to the 105th congress of the Association of Mayors of France, Gabriel Attal declared: “A student who enters 6th grade without knowing how to read or count is almost abuse.” He announced that he wanted to review “the question of the taboo of repeating a year”. Which had the effect of relaunching this burning debate. Many experts immediately pointed to past national and global surveys showing that keeping a student in the same grade level two years in a row produces mixed results.
Scientific results that are sometimes counterintuitive
“More than ten years ago, Pisa experts already demonstrated its ineffectiveness!”, reacts education historian Claude Lelièvre. In July 2011, the OECD explained, in a note based on the results of the Pisa 2009 survey, that the countries, including France, which had their students repeat the most were also those which had the least good results. schools. And international experts point out that in Korea, Japan and Norway, which are particularly well ranked, repetition does not exist. On November 14, against Medef, Gabriel Attal delayed a little and mentioned an alternative to repeating a year: the obligation for a young person who does not have the level to follow a successful course during the summer. Far from being unanimous, this idea, already mentioned by Emmanuel Macron last August, was then welcomed in L’Express by Bernard Toulemonde, former rector and ex-member of several socialist ministerial cabinets. “Experiments of this type already exist, such as the Open School system set up during school holidays in priority neighborhoods and which deserves to be encouraged,” he argued.
Gabriel Attal also plans to set up level groups. “When you have students who are at such different levels in the same class […]you end up dragging everyone down!”, he justified before the Senate on November 8. Here again, the argument is far from convincing all those involved in education, some scientific work having demonstrated the limits of this method such as the risk of “stigmatization” of the weakest students. Those who find themselves in the group of the best can, on the other hand, benefit from a certain form of emulation but, in either case, the results are very nuanced. “What the minister puts forward may appear to be common sense but let’s not forget that the results of scientific studies are sometimes counter-intuitive”, warns Claude Lelièvre, for whom Gabriel Attal’s priority is above all ” to please parents in the short term.
“Many may be seduced by this return to the old methods which are familiar to them because they have known them in the past. This does not however prove that they are effective,” insists the historian. In public opinion, the approach seems to be bearing fruit. According to an Ifop-Fiducial survey for Sud Radio, dated November 17, 81% of respondents consider its idea of creating level classes effective. More generally, 55% of French people say they trust Gabriel Attal as Minister of National Education.
“Educational policy is evaluated over the long term”
On the side of specialists and teaching unions, many regret that certain points considered crucial are completely absent from current debates, such as the question of overcrowded classes. “Our nursery and elementary schools, like middle schools, have class sizes significantly higher than those of our European neighbors,” recalls Jean-Paul Delahaye, honorary general inspector of national education. And this former general director of school education, who was also special advisor to Vincent Peillon, stressed the importance of reviewing the initial and continuing training of teachers, a subject on which Gabriel Attal promised to make announcements next January. Note that the issue of social and educational diversity is today completely ignored, even though France is one of the OECD countries where social origin has the greatest impact on student success. “How can a Minister of National Education not have this priority today when several experiments, carried out in Toulouse or Paris, have shown good results?” Jean-Paul Delahaye pretends to question. And the senior official expresses his feelings: “The anxiety-provoking context in which we live and the concern of families regarding the education of their children, particularly the middle classes, tend to provoke strategies which look more like a ‘save who can be individual rather than a collective project.”
Other experts, like Alain Boissinot, are cautious and take care to remember that an educational policy can only be evaluated over the long term. “Regarding the Pisa investigation, it would be wrong to believe that the few avenues announced will lead to an improvement in the results in three years,” says the latter. This is also the observation made by the economist Xavier Jaravel, in his highly acclaimed essayMarie Curie lives in Morbihan (Threshold). “Several interesting reforms have seen the light of day in recent decades but, applied discontinuously and without a global vision, these cannot produce profound changes,” explains the researcher in a long interview recently given to L’Express.
Proof that the stakes are high, the measures of the “Attal plan” are discussed until the last moment within the working group set up by the minister in mid-October. It is coordinated by Edouard Geffray, general director of school education, Caroline Pascal, dean of the general inspection of education, sport and research, Stanislas Dehaene, president of the CSEN, and Gilles Halbout, rector of the Orléans-Tours academy
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