“Educational inequality is the greatest obstacle that the creation of truly democratic morals can encounter,” said Jules Ferry*, who must be turning in his grave after reading the latest results of the Pisa survey. Because, according to OECD figures, France continues its decline in terms of education. Never has its performance been so bad, notes the new Pisa edition which compares the data for 2022 with those for 2018. Whether in mathematics, reading comprehension or science, French middle school students barely obtain the average of OECD countries. More alarming, even the group of the best students is visibly disappearing, while that of the dunce hats continues to progress.
France will be somewhat reassured by noting that this slide concerns most European countries. The educational models of Germany and especially Finland – the latter being considered until recently as the ultimate in education – are losing ground. The Covid has of course been there, but the pandemic does not explain everything. Especially in France, where the drop in standards is more pronounced than elsewhere, despite the enormous amounts of money invested in schools. Because it is not the lack of resources that is eating away at French schools. As evidenced by a study of theMolinari Economic Institute as revealed by L’Express: France is ranked 14th out of 30 in terms of efficiency of primary and secondary education spending. This shows that the 7,890 euros invested per French student annually are far from bearing fruit: if this money were spent as effectively as in Estonia or Ireland, calculates the Molinari Institute, the same result could be obtained by reducing the cost per student by 15.3%, i.e. a saving of 1,200 euros per head.
Rather than demanding additional resources, National Education unions would do better to question the causes of French decline. Very rich, the Pisa 2022 survey indicates avenues: the loosened bond between students and teachers, the lesser involvement of parents in education… Or even, the noise and agitation which reign in class, a phenomenon noted by half of French students (compared to 30% on average in the OECD). Not to mention school leaders, 67% of whom (compared to 18% in 2018) believe that the functioning of classes is hampered by the lack of teachers…
Catastrophic, these poor performances demanded an immediate response: the French “Pisa shock”, presented on December 5 by Gabriel Attal, a few hours after the publication of the OECD survey, includes numerous measures, which will put the boiling “mammoth”. For the Minister of Education, it is high time to stop the losing machine. If he is popular with the French, he still has to convince his own flock – the 859,000 teachers – to play the game of reforms: without their support, these measures risk pschitt.
* Jules Ferry, “On equality of education” (conference of April 10, 1870).