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The General Inspectorate for Education, Sport and Research published alarming data on illiteracy in France, in its latest report at the end of May 2022: 5% of 16-year-olds are illiterate.
Illiteracy refers to all people who cannot read or write. Long underestimated, illiteracy is a complex and often neglected reality, highlighted by the National Education report.
Alarming data
According to the General Inspectorate for Education, Sport and Research, 10% of 16-year-olds “take the corridor of illiteracy” since they experience reading difficulties (significant deficit in vocabulary; absence of basic mechanisms for processing written language).
5% of them are indeed in a situation of illiteracy, which results in a significant deficit of vocabulary and an absence of the basic mechanisms for processing written language. A finding made following the evaluations carried out in 2020, during Defense and Citizenship Day (JDC).
The remaining 5% suffer from severe difficulties (correct lexical level, but inability or extreme difficulty in understanding written texts).
Some areas are more affected than others
Illiterate young people have a very specific profile, especially when it comes to where they live.
According to the INSEE IVQ survey (2012):
- 50% of illiterate people live in sparsely populated areas;
- 26% in rural areas;
- 22.5% in cities with less than 20,000 inhabitants.
“The data from the JDC, in 2020, show that it is north of the Loire that reading difficulties are the most frequent”, according to the report. The Amiens academy is the most affected.
The difference between mainland France and the overseas territories is all the more worrying. 7% of the population of metropolitan France are affected by illiteracy, and the figure is doubled, even quadrupled in the overseas territories, marked by multilingualism.
According to data from the JDC (2020), 10% of young people in mainland France suffer from very poor reading comprehension. Overseas, they are 25.4% in Reunion, 28% in Guadeloupe and Martinique, 46.6% in Guyana and 71.1% in Mayotte.
A little-known subject within the National Education
According to the report, the situation of illiteracy in France is experienced as a “fatality”both by the students concerned, their families and teachers.
“However, structural measures, mechanisms and tools already exist at the hand of the institution, its actors and partners to detect the risks of illiteracy and remedy them as soon as possible”pleads the report.
According to the inspectors, the existing levers are numerous:
- Lowering the age of compulsory education;
- priority education;
- New forms of territorial networking;
- Specific support and remediation systems;
- Partnership resources;
- Commitment of missions to fight against school dropout;
- Adapted consultation of teaching teams.
However, these measures remain rarely implemented and “insufficiently shared”. The problem of illiteracy has long been neglected, and the National Education is aware of it.
To “effectively attack this insidious evil”, the report proposes the development of reflex measures adapted throughout the schooling of the pupils, in order to detect their difficulties as early as possible. It also offers efficient testing and careful monitoring of students. Finally, teacher training is “a key role” to treat this “evil that thrives mainly on negligence and ignorance”.