France 22nd in OECD school list

FRANCE has come a mediocre 22nd out of 65 countries whose educational levels were assessed in a study by the OECD.

The Pisa study, based on tests in 2009, looked at abilities of 15-year-olds in 34 free-market democracies, plus 31 other countries around the world.

Both France and the UK, which came 25th, lag far behind top performers China (Shanghai), S. Korea, Finland, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The study assessed ability in three subjects. In maths, France came 22nd and the UK 28th, while in reading they were 22nd and 25th. The UK, however, did better in science: 16th compared to 27th.

Girls in both countries outperformed boys in maths and literacy, with the gap widest in France, while boys did better in science, especially in the UK.

Though France placed poorly for science, pupils’ skills were judged to have improved slightly compared to the last Pisa study, in 2006, while maths and literacy had both deteriorated.

According to the largest secondary teaching union, Snes, the study is of limited interest because it suggests the success of education can be judged on a small number of “core competences”.

The French system, “more ambitious and more complete”, is put at a disadvantage by this, a spokesman said.

However, Snes admitted that the study showed French education needed to become more “democratic”, because social background had a marked impact on success.

Christian Forestier, a member of the leading think-tank the Institut Montaigne and of the High Council for Education, a government advisory body, said that, while the “average” placing was not a surprise, as France placed similarly last time, certain findings were worrying.

“There are a third more children in serious academic difficulty in French and a third more in maths, which is very serious. Nor is this compensated by a comparable increase in children who are doing very well: there was a slight increase in French and a drop in maths. What is more, while social background affects success in all countries, France is the country in Europe where it has the strongest effect.”

Education minister Luc Chatel said he did not agree with the argument that the study was not adapted to the French system. It provided a “good comparison of the performances of the different education systems”, he said.

“We must look the results in the face and draw conclusions from them.”

A ministry spokeswoman said that France was given an overall 496 in Pisa’s complex scoring system, just one point lower than Germany and four lower than the USA, while it did better than Italy, the UK and Spain.

“We’re not necessarily satisfied with our placing, but you can’t say we did ‘badly’ if we were above the OECD average, which was 493. The success of areas like Shanghai doesn’t worry us: it does not represent the whole of China.”

However she said the biggest concern was the polarisation of results: “We have some excellent pupils, more or less as good as anywhere, but we have too many pupils in difficulty.”