France consolidates its status as Europe's poor student in mathematics, according to the results of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss) survey which assessed, in 2023, the mathematics and science skills of CM1 students and 4e in around fifty countries.
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With a score of 484 points for CM1 students, compared to 524 points on average in the European Union, France is dead last in Europe, just behind French-speaking Belgium. It is also penultimate in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), ahead of Chile. In class of 4ethe French obtain an average of 479 and are therefore penultimate in Europe, ahead of Portugal – and still penultimate, ahead of Chile, for the rest of the OECD. The best performing countries remain Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.
These results are « stables » since 2019, insisted the Ministry of National Education on the eve of their publication, Wednesday December 4. During the previous edition of the Timss survey, in fact, France obtained respectively 485 points in CM1 and 483 points in 4e. The Timss survey also evaluates results in science, which are stable and slightly better than in mathematics, even if France is, again, at the bottom of the ranking.
Inequalities based on social origin
On the other hand, there are now 23 points of difference between girls and boys in mathematics in CM1, in favor of the latter, compared to 13 points in 2019 and 6 in 2015. Among students in 4ethis difference is also marked. The explosion of girl-boy inequalities in CM1 places France as the European champion of gender inequalities, even if the majority of European Union and OECD countries have differences in scores favoring boys. National education claims to have the problem « south are radar » and make one “point of vigilance” during teacher training.
France is also the champion of inequalities in results based on social origin. There is now an 81 point gap in mathematics, in CM1, between the most advantaged and the most disadvantaged students. Statisticians from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), the organization that conducts the Timss survey, consider that a year of courses represents approximately 30 to 35 score points. We must therefore imagine that, in CM1, the least advantaged students are approximately two years behind the most advantaged. These gaps place France among the most unequal countries in Europe.
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