During a trip to Marseille with the new Minister of National Education Pap Ndiaye, Emmanuel Macron confirmed the return of mathematics to the common core in the Première class from the start of the 2022 school year, with the possibility of choosing this subject as an option.
Return of maths in the common core: when, for whom?
In Marseilles with the Minister of Education Pap Ndiaye, Emmanuel Macron concretely explained what his “school of the future” would be made of. In this regard, his announcement on the fate of mathematics was expected, while many are those who are campaigning for their return to the common core. The President ruled: mathematics will return to first grade, but as an option, from the start of the 2022 school year. “As I had committed to in the campaign, we will reintroduce in class of First the possibility of choosing mathematics as an option“he announced, adding that‘””there will always be the math specialty, but there will be the possibility offered to all students to choose outside the specialty the hour and a half of mathematics which had been taken out of the common core“he added, adding that “it will not be mandatory”. In a press release from the Ministry of National Education and Youth, it is thus explained that this new teaching, “will allow non-specialists to consolidate the learning and mastery of fundamental notions and to continue, if necessary, with the complementary mathematics option in terminale”
How many hours of mathematics per week in Première?
The teaching of mathematics offered to first year pupils has been limited to an hour and a half per week. “As a transitional measure, for the 2022-2023 school year, this teaching will be offered on an optional basis to pupils in class 1time who have not chosen the mathematics specialty. This new “scientific and mathematical education” will be increased to 3.5 hours per week (compared to 2 hours currently devoted to scientific education). It will be assessed within the framework of continuous assessment, without modifying the coefficient currently attributed to scientific education (coefficient 3 for the year of 1time)”specifies the press release of June 2, 2022.
What has changed with the baccalaureate reform?
Implemented at the start of the 2018 school year, the baccalaureate reform, led by the Minister of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, had abolished the S, ES and L streams in general education to replace them with a common core consisting of several specialties to choose from, but not mathematics. Four years later and after the submission of a report on “The place of mathematics in the general way of the high school of general and technological education“by the experts of the consultation committee on the teaching of mathematics in the general high school, Emmanuel Macron had recognized that this much criticized absence was a mistake. “In view of the first evaluations, of what goes back, we must put mathematics back in the common core of the baccalaureate”, had indeed explained the president on France Inter. Teachers had noted a decrease in the number of high school students opting for this science subject, particularly among girls. The other goal of the reform to come: a national objective of 10,000 more girls in the mathematics option terminale experts, from 2022, for a deadline at the start of the 2024 academic year.