The Minister of National Education has created a consultation committee responsible for reflecting on improvements in the teaching of mathematics. How do we perceive this evolution of the teaching of this subject in schools?
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Consultations on the teaching of mathematics in high school begin on Wednesday 23 February. This is a first meeting of the committee of experts, set up by Jean-Michel Blanquer, the Minister of Education, with the association of mathematics teachers (APMEP). This committee is supposed to deliver its conclusions in mid-March to respond to criticism of the place of mathematics in high school since the reform, implemented in 2019.
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Since this reform, mathematics is no longer compulsory from the first. They are only taught in their own right if the student chooses the specialty. The first consequence that Mickaël saw, in his high school of 500 students in Tonnerre, in the Yonne, is the drop in the hourly volume of math lessons: “In terminale class, we only have one math specialty class, unlike before when there were three terminale S classes and two economic and social classes. So, there was still a big loss of ‘students taking mathematics.’
The classes are also more heterogeneous, notes this teacher, with very different levels, even downright down, notes for his part Youssef. He teaches in the vicinity of Rouen: “Every year I have to go and look for notions a little far away towards college so that he can follow what we are doing. There is a lack of interest in mathematics which worries me a little.” For this professor, mathematics is necessary for other disciplines, such as economics or sociology. This is why he would like, for example, to create a new specialty in applied maths, less specialized.
Another proposal, to find a fully-fledged teaching of mathematics in the common core. “A real two-hour lessonsuggests Frédérique, a teacher near Toulouse. It’s not just about doing math, it’s out of the question. But the imbalance of the common core is too blatant.” Today the teacher points to inequalities in the choices of the pupils who depend a lot on the knowledge of the families of the studies after the baccalaureate.