High school: optional return mathematics in first from 2022

During his trip to Marseille, Emmanuel Macron acted the return of the material in the common trunk of the first class, but in an optional way for the next school year.

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How to respect a campaign promise while taking into account its implementation difficulties? Emmanuel Macron found a solution worthy of his famous “at the same time”: mathematics will be back in the teachings of the common trunk of the first class from the start of the school year, but in an optional way for the year 2022-2023. “There will always be the math specialty, but there will be the possibility offered to all students to choose, outside the specialty, the time and a half of mathematics,” said the President of the Republic, during his trip In Marseille, Thursday, June 2, with the Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye. “We will offer them this freedom that corresponds to my commitment,” he said.

Several alarming assessments on the choices of high school students have placed the question of mathematics in the high school on the political field in recent months. Since the implementation of the Bac reform, in 2019, the discipline has disappeared from the common core to become a specialty education, as twelve other disciplines left to the choice of high school students. Result: one in three pupils decides to stop math at the end of the general second class, and only 37 % of the students of terminal keep the specialty of six hours per week. In the cascade, mathematics has lost 18 % of the total volume of hours taught.

Candidates for the presidential election, such as Valérie Pécresse or Eric Zemmour, took hold of the subject. The candidate Emmanuel Macron then promised their reintroduction. The holding of the presidential election, on the one hand, and the slowness of constitution of the Borne government, on the other hand, then delayed any clear formalization.

A few weeks before the end of the school year and while the class councils in the third quarter are being held, it was more than an emergency to finally make a decision, it is said in the Educational community. Already in mid-May, the SNPDEN-UNSA, was worried about this floating. The majority union among school leaders then affirmed his opposition to this compulsory return of mathematics in the common trunk from 2022, arguing not a substantive question but a “calendar problem” to inform the students and their parents.

Do these clarifications satisfy the actors?

The architecture of the first year is clarified today: the option will be aimed at students who have not chosen the specialty. She will take off in scientific education, two hours today. This teaching will be evaluated in the context of continuous control, without modification of the coefficient.

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/Media reports.