One of the most controversial measures of the Blanquer reform in 2019 was the disappearance of mathematics from compulsory subjects in first and final classes of the general stream.
The reintroduction of compulsory mathematics education at the start of the 2023 school year for all high school students in the general stream in the first pay class is one of the most controversial measures of the Blanquer reform of the baccalaureate.
High school students angry with math will grimace. From September 2023, all students in first general who have not taken the mathematics specialty will have an hour and a half more of lessons per week devoted to this discipline.
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“It is the return of the teaching of mathematics for all high school students“welcomed the Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye in an interview with Echoes published on Sunday. Decline in culture and the scientific pool, strengthening of social and gender inequalities, the consequences of the disappearance since 2019 of mathematics in the common core of compulsory subjects taught in first and final year classes had alarmed the educational community, researchers, big bosses but also political up to the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron.
During the 2022 presidential campaign, the candidate Macron had thus promised the return of maths in the common core in the event of re-election, before recording this reintroduction from the start of the 2022 school year but only as an option. The announcement, which occurred a dozen weeks before the start of the school year, had been criticized for its haste and a small number of pupils had finally chosen this option during the 2022-23 school year.
In addition to the timetable puzzle for school heads, there was also a human resources challenge for National Education against a background of a shortage of teachers: where to find the teachers to ensure these new teaching hours? While discipline will now be compulsory for all at the start of the 2023 school year, Pap Ndiaye wants to be reassuring by quantifying the new needs at “400 to 425 positions, in full-time equivalents“. “It’s possible“, he declares even if he does not exclude “adjustments“.
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Girl-boy parity
The announcement comes in any case to complete a backpedaling of the executive initiated at the end of the first five-year term by his predecessor Jean-Michel Blanquer, who was nevertheless at the origin of the reform. In March, a report was submitted to the ex-tenant of rue de Grenelle by a group of experts, recommending that mathematics be put back in the common core at the rate of 1:30 to 2:00 more per week. “It is a purely pragmatic plan. The high school reform is not upset“, justified Pap Ndiaye.
Since the high school reform in 2019 which put an end to the traditional L, ES and S series, mathematics was no longer part of the subjects taught to all high school students (the common core). Previously, even students in the literary stream benefited from teaching mathematics. Often assimilated to the keystone of academic success in high school, sometimes to the detriment of other subjects, mathematics had become a specialty education like a dozen other disciplines, left to the free choice of students.
In 2022, mathematics remained the most chosen specialty in the final year, by 37% of high school students, however down four points compared to 2021. In total, all types of education combined (specialty and options “complementary mathematics” and “expert math“), 55% of final year students studied math during the 2021-22 school year, outside of common core science education, according to figures from the Ministry of National Education.
However, these pointed to strong disparities between girls and boys: only 46% of girls were still studying maths in the final year of all courses, and 26% as a specialty. Announced ahead of the mathematics conference organized in Paris from Monday to Wednesday, the return of compulsory math is part of a strategy led by the Minister of National Education aimed at “reconcile all students» with this discipline and «promote equality between girls and boysfrom elementary to high school.
This strategy sets out a battery of measures and objectives such as that of gender parity by 2027 in mathematics, physics-chemistry or expert mathematics specialties reputed to be the most selective. An objective for which Pap Ndiaye affirms “remove(s) the quota lever“.
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