The Minister of National Education announced on Sunday the return of the discipline in all general general classes. The unions denounce a DIY and anticipate a shortage of teachers.
by Sylvie Lecherbonnier
The 1 h 30 math option, added in a hurry in September in the common trunk of the first class and shunned by a large part of the students, lived. At the start of the 2023 school year, this option will become compulsory education for those who will not choose specialty education, announced the Minister of National Education, Sunday, November 13. “It is necessary to reconcile the angry students with this discipline, by proposing a specific program which allows a refresher,” says the Minister in an interview with the Echos.
The scientific community has alerted for months on the consequences of the reform of the school, wanted by Jean-Michel Blanquer, on the choices of orientation of high school students. Since 2019, the discipline has disappeared from the common core to become a specialty education, to choose from twelve others. Result: one in three students has been deciding since stopping math at the end of the general second class. This eloquent figure forced Emmanuel Macron to position himself during the presidential campaign and to offer a return of mathematics in the common trunk of the first class, first in optional form.
Pap Ndiaye thus confirms the retropedaling started a few months ago. The Minister also wants to correct gender inequalities caused by the reform. The mathematical specialty is mainly followed by boys today (58 %). The Minister displays the objective of reaching by the end of the five-year period, parity girls-boys in this specialty, without implementing quotas.
The risk of a “image of “Punitive mathematics” “
This new formula arouses many doubts in the educational community. Sophie Venetitay, head of SNES-FSU, believes that the “DIY” ministry and wonders about “the dead angles of these announcements”: “What program in second? What articulation with the Terminale?”, Wonders . “This measure makes the risk of consolidating an image of” punitive mathematics “”, fears for its part the SE-UNSA. For Mélanie Guenais, coordinator of the Maths and Science collective, not only can the announced measures be “counterproductive” for the most fragile students, but they do not allow more high school students to the sciences while it is “absolutely necessary to widen the pool quickly “.
The timing of these announcements is not trivial. Monday, November 14, open the assizes of mathematics during which the CNRS wants to challenge policies on their disinterest in discipline, while “they are vital to preserve the economic sovereignty of France”, hammer the organizers. According to their survey carried out upstream of the event, no less than 3.3 million salaried jobs have a main activity related to the discipline and this figure is called upon to grow.
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