The mathematician calls, in an interview with the “world”, to a strengthening of scientific materials in the common trunk in high school.
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For Cédric Villani, mathematician and deputy (ex-LRM), the baccalaureate reform accentuated certain biases. Candidate for a new mandate in Essonne, the one who now displays his support for Europe Ecologie-les Verts regrets the accentuation of level differences in this discipline, and the low proportion of girls in the “math” specialty in terminal.
In 2018, you wrote, with Inspector General Charles Torossian, a report on mathematics teaching in France, where you made twenty -one proposals. Four years later, concerns about the level in mathematics of young French people increased. Has your report stayed without follow-up?
The 2018 report focused mainly to primary school, because this is where the most important levers are to reform the entire system linked to mathematics teaching. Over the past four years, it cannot be said that the government has done nothing. A redesign was carried out at the level of the training of primary school teachers, accompanied by the establishment of mathematics laboratories in secondary school, which allow teachers to collectively conduct a reflection on the teaching of their discipline. The vast majority of the actions recommended by the report have been taken into account.
It is true, however, that an unprecedented sling of learned societies, associations of mathematics, astronomy and astrophysics, biometrics, biophysics, computer, engineers, physics chemistry, classes scientific preparatory, was formed, very critical of the consequences of the reorganization of the baccalaureate.
There have been several unfavorable indicators concerning this reform, in particular that girls prematurely let go of mathematics. In 2021, only 25 % of high school girls benefited from a teaching of mathematics of more than 6 hours weekly against 45 % before the reform. Then, it was the discipline that lost the most teaching hours during this reorganization of the baccalaureate. This does not correspond to the commitments of the Ministry of National Education at the start of the five -year term.
We also noted that mathematics have not found a place in the common trunk of the materials that the high school students must follow. Finally, if the teachers of the superior recognize that part of the pool (those who followed the “expert math” option) arrives in their classes with an interesting level, there is nevertheless a great heterogeneity of the profiles; This does not date from this reform, but the situation has worsened.
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