The study of mathematics at first will no longer be reserved only for students who have chosen the material as a specialty.
Le Monde with AFP
This is a return to the appearance of unfinished. Emmanuel Macron announced, Thursday, June 2 during a school visit to Marseille, that mathematics would again be integrated into the common trunk of first class lessons, as soon as the next school year, but “optional”. “There will always be the math specialty, but there will be the possibility offered to all students to choose, out of the specialty, the time and a half of mathematics that had been out of the common trunk,” he added , specifying: “It will not be compulsory.”
The subject of the sensitive math animated the presidential campaign. They came out of the common core of lessons in 2019 by becoming a specialty education – in the same way as a dozen other disciplines – left to the free choice of high school students. Previously, even students in the literary sector benefited from mathematical education. An expert report advocated in March to reintroduce mathematics in the common trunk from the first class, for an hour and a half to two more hours per week. The proposal also appeared in the program of Emmanuel Macron, candidate for his re -election.
“Let’s leave children’s freedom”
The Head of State stressed that this teaching “will not be compulsory in this first year”, in order to “do it quickly”. “I think that it is also necessary to get out of this dilemma, before it is compulsory. Leave freedom to children and families,” he continued. In early May, when the Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, spoke of this reintegration of mathematics in the common trunk, there was no question of confining them to the status of “option”. Several representatives of teachers were worried about the ability of establishments to adapt quickly, both in terms of organization and schedules, as well as the recruitment of the necessary professionals while the discipline is very attractive.
“With this choice of optional math reintroduction, the government takes a third path so as not to apply it completely from the start of the school year, and not to postpone it to 2023,” said the France Agency -Presse Sophie Venetitay, secretary general of SNES-FSU, first second degree union. According to her, “this is a political display”, which will “unfortunately not bring more students, nor more girls to choose math, while it was the goal”.
In a press release, a collective of learned companies and associations of scientific teachers and university asks the Minister of Education, Pap Ndiaye, “the establishment of a working group bringing together the various competent actors to propose solutions sustainable for the start of the school year 2023 “.