Editorial of the “World”. Are mathematics an element of general culture or a professional target tool? The debate is not new, but it is restarted by the publication of national education statistics, which show that a student in three of the general sector abandons this discipline after the second class.
Since the start of 2019, high school reform has replaced the sectors through a card with a cards consisting of a common core and options. Mathematics no longer subsist in the common core as a component of a generalist “scientific education”; They have become one of the optional “specialty teachings”.
Maths are very far from disappearing: 37% of Terminale students keep them in “specialty” heavy six hours a week, and the math and physical-chemistry combination is most frequently chosen. But the reform has dropped by 90% to 59% the proportion of students following a terminal mathematics teaching. More serious, it results in a fall of 7% of the proportion of girls who follow intensive math teaching in terminal.
The reform of the high school, whose proponent is Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, has a commendable objective: to stop enclosing high school students in hierarchical corridors according to the place of maths, dominant selection criterion, and Reserve the scientific sectors with “true” scientists. It has begun to produce positive effects: 80% of students who have chosen a temporary math specialty pursue higher scientific studies, and maths are no longer a recommended passage to access non-scientific popular sectors. Although some higher institutions do not play the game and continue to select on the math.
Red Lantern
In a red lantern country of the European Union for the results of its students in mathematics, and to which 5,000 engineers are missing a year, according to the employers, the place of this discipline in teaching is an immense issue. The structure of high school studies is not the only variable – ongoing mobilization in elementary school and college under the impetus of the Villani-Torossian report is crucial – but it controls progress that are expected quickly. But high school reform has produced perverse effects that require corrected. Mathematics, discipline that scares too many students, must neither again become a selection instrument nor declose itself.
m. Blanquer has just conceded. They are auspicious, but ask to be specified. The shortage of mathematics teachers, which limits the minister’s room for maneuver, must be combated by improving remuneration and conditions for the exercise of a strategic trade. The creation of a complementary math option from the first would be a first step. But the reintroduction of this discipline in the common core is also needed, if students – especially girls – do not exclude this discipline where they could have succeed.
Decisive, the choices must take place not on the basis of managerial or corporatist criteria, but according to the aspirations of the students and the needs of the country. It is about investing both to help France reconnect with its tradition of excellence in mathematics and to promote its active participation in current technological revolutions.