With each presidential election, the candidates change, their proposals for National Education vary, but the gaze of the French is fairly constant: they often pass a harsh judgment on the school and the action of the government in the matter. As proof, an Ipsos poll published in September 2021 indicated that 54% of French people believe that the school system works poorly.
And while the work of teachers has been largely disrupted over the past two years by the health crisis, an IFOP survey highlighted last fall that the feeling of aggravation of the drop in the level of pupils, “already a majority in the opinion”has strengthened over the past two years: “69% of parents share this opinion, 6 points more than in 2019! ”
And if, in recent months, the debates have sometimes focused on the management of the pandemic by the Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer, at the origin of a very strong mobilization of teachers on January 13, issues such as teacher compensation, the place given to mathematics in high school, the operation of the Parcoursup platform or university registration fees have also been in the news.
To give you some keys to reading before studying the candidates’ proposals, International mail wanted to compare the data concerning the French education system in France with those of several of its neighbors in the European Union (including in particular Germany, Denmark, Italy, Spain and Poland).
The criteria observed? The number of children per class, the number of hours per discipline, teachers’ salaries, the weight of public education expenditure, tuition fees in higher education, and the proportion of students who do not benefit from scholarships or study loans. How can we make the most objective judgment possible about the school?