“Alas, not a surprise”: maths, written comprehension… The level of French students at its lowest
The French, bad students? Although they remain within the average for OECD countries, the results of French students in the 2025 Pisa international survey (Program for International Student Assessment), published Tuesday September 8, are the lowest ever measured since the creation of the program.
The Minister of National Education reports a “worrying” observation, and considers that the college must be the “major project” of the next five-year term.
Compared to the last edition, in 2022, the results in science are stable (-4 points). On the other hand, they have declined considerably in reading comprehension (-18 points), and in mathematics (-16 points).
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development considers 20 points to represent approximately one year of schooling.
An extension in your browser appears to be blocking the loading of the video player. To be able to watch this content, you must disable or uninstall it.
Cover image: © France 24
“It is worrying but it is, unfortunately, not a surprise,” National Education Minister Édouard Geffray told Le Monde newspaper.
Since 2000, the Pisa study has been probing the performance of education systems, through the skills of 15-year-old students. The exercises were submitted in 2025 to 6,500 French students, most of whom entered first grade in 2015 and 6e in 2020.
Since 2015, the performance gap between the most socio-economically advantaged students and the most disadvantaged has narrowed, due to a decline in the results of advantaged students.
“Our education system probably has difficulties which have become widespread among advantaged students,” points out Éric Charbonnier, education specialist at Pisa. In ten years, the percentage of high-performing students has been halved in mathematics and reading comprehension. And a third of French students have great difficulty with written comprehension.
“Coming and going” of reforms
Why this continued decline in the results of French students? According to the OECD, we do not necessarily have to look at public investment. “France has a fairly high educational expenditure compared to the performance obtained,” points out Éric Charbonnier, who recommends “above all” to “invest the money well”.
The drop in performance is “not due to immigration” either, the performance gap between adolescents “from an immigrant background” and “non-immigrants” has been stable since 2015.
The OECD, on the other hand, is alarmed by weakening parental support, and by the decline in reading comprehension among boys from the most advantaged backgrounds, a new development.
The OECD also considers that it is difficult to measure the effects of reforms because of their number and their “coming and going”.
In France, since the start of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term, there have been no fewer than eight Ministers of National Education in ten years, with almost as many reforms carried out. Reforms which have not always provided the hoped-for answers. Overcrowded classes, difficulties in recruiting teachers, absenteeism of unreplaced teachers… Teachers’ unions have been warning for years.
Screens and decline in parental support
But for Edouard Geffray, the responsibility is rather to be found on the side of social networks, “a weapon of massive intellectual destruction”, as well as in “the reduction in parental investment in education”.
Each family will receive after the All Saints holidays a document detailing the learning of the school year.
“We should have asked ourselves earlier about the measures to be taken for the college. This must be the major project of the next five-year term in order to allow teachers to implement the most effective teaching practices,” he added.
He wants to “increase by 50%, within five years, the hours of autonomy granted to colleges”, in particular “to strengthen support for students in difficulty” and “to diversify the offer”.
“If we manage to carry out both the project of pedagogy and that of the autonomy of establishments, we could return to the top of the ranking in 2033,” he said.
Some presidential election candidates who made education one of the themes of their campaign this fall were quick to react.
“Raising the level, respecting the authority of the teacher, having happy students: President of the Republic, this will be my first priority”, wrote on X Gabriel Attal (Renaissance), former Minister of Education (2023).
“How many disastrous Pisa rankings will it take for National Education to open its eyes (…)?”, commented Bruno Retailleau (LR), recalling the desire to eliminate the single middle school “in favor of adapted courses”.
Édouard Philippe (Horizons), for his part, reiterated to AFP that he wanted to “put standards back at the heart of the national educational project”: “Freedom of establishments to adapt teaching, return of homework to the table, regaining the month of June, evaluation and total transparency on school results.”
With AFP
