Two years of audits and visits to 60 schools in six academies.
Conclusion?
Despite massive spending, the French national education system "worsens inequalities and causes too much failure".
Harsh, indeed. And yet, for anyone with children in the system, is it really a surprise?
The 200 page report from the Cours de Comptes concludes that change is imperative.
Instead of supply (class hours, teachers, budget), says the report, budgets should be based on demand (students' precise knowledge needs). In the original French:
"Il est désormais impératif de remplacer la logique de l'offre scolaire – qui repose sur des moyens alloués en fonction des programmes : tant d'heures de cours, qui signifient tant d'enseignants, qui signifient tel budget –, par une logique fondée sur la demande, c'est-à-dire sur une connaissance nettement plus précise des besoins des élèves"
The report goes on to list 13 proposals, including:
- Put an end to "uniform budget allocation" which hurts schools which need extra help
- Reduce the number of children held back
- Abandon the ideology of heterogenous classes
- Change the orientation system, today entirely failure based
- Give more decision power concerning resource allocation to individual schools
Schools in priority zones have just been given a measure of autonomy. Has reform begun?
