Education: what the PISA survey says about the academic level of French students

An hour before Gabriel Attal spoke to the press to unveil his measures intended to raise educational standards, the OECD published the results of its PISA survey, “the first vast survey to collect data on student performance, their well-being -being and equity in education before and after the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. »

“PISA 2022 recorded an unprecedented decline in performance across the OECD. Compared to 2018, the average score of OECD countries fell by 10 points in reading comprehension and by almost 15 points in mathematics, which represents three quarters of a year of school learning. This steep drop in mathematics scores is three times higher than the changes observed in previous surveys. In fact, one in four 15-year-olds now perform poorly in mathematics, reading and science, on average across OECD countries,” explains the organization, which highlights that “this sharp decline is only partly attributable to the pandemic. »

“Scores in reading comprehension and science had already started to decline before the pandemic. Thus, a negative trend was already evident in mathematics performance before 2018,” particularly in France.

Our country is in the average of OECD countries. The average score of French students is 474 in mathematics (482 in the OECD), a drop of -21 compared to PISA 2018, with a long-term trend (calculated on the basis of the average ten-year trend) of -14.

The score is 474 in reading comprehension (476 in the OECD), down -19 compared to 2018, with a long-term trend of -8.

Finally, regarding sciences, France’s score is 487 in reading comprehension (476 in the OECD), down -6 compared to 2018, with a long-term trend of -6 as well.

The percentage of high-performing French students in at least one of the areas (level 5 or 6) is 12.9% compared to 13.7% on average in OECD countries and 44.5% in Singapore and 19 % in the Netherlands, the largest country in the EU. The percentage of low-performing students in the three areas (below level 2) is 16.8% compared to 16.4% on average in OECD countries and 4.2% in Singapore and 5.2% in Estonia, first country in the EU.