The Minister of National Education, Gabriel Attal, announced Wednesday that he would soon make decisions on grade repetition. The minister plans to make a series of announcements on December 5 to raise “the general level” of students.
The Minister of National Education, Gabriel Attal, affirmed on Wednesday that “we must review” the “question of the taboo of repeating a year” and promised to “make decisions” on this subject, which he will announce “at the beginning of December.” A student who enters 6th grade without knowing how to read or count is almost abuse,” declared the minister during a workshop on school at the congress of the Association of Mayors of France.
Gabriel Attal had already planned to make a series of announcements on December 5 “to raise the general level” of students, particularly in middle school where his proposal for “level groups” in maths and French is causing debate. “How do you want to learn history and geography if you don’t know how to read? Physics and chemistry without knowing how to count?” insisted Mr. Attal. “We have to make decisions.” “I will take responsibility for them,” he added, giving “an appointment at the beginning of December” to find out the details.
Make the teaching profession attractive
The minister also recalled that he will announce on this same occasion “the possibility for (his) ministry to label school textbooks”, the content and method of which will have demonstrated their “effectiveness”. He also set a date in January to unveil “a profound reform of training for the teaching profession”, in particular in order to be able to “pre-recruit at baccalaureate level” those who have “the vocation” of teacher and to re-establish a “competition for the bac+3 level” followed by “progressive entry into the profession over two years”. “I think that this will solve part of the problem” of the attractiveness of the profession, he explained, while many positions remain vacant each year, for lack of candidates.