What meaning should we give to the national assessment carried out every year by the Ministry of Education? On November 19, the ministry presented to the press the results of the 2025 version of the test at all levels from CP to 4ethen in second and in CAP. In total, 7 million students were assessed. The results, which are generally stable, confirm the main trends in the French education system: the performance gap between disadvantaged students and the rest – even if they are reduced in some skills –, the number of core students who do not master the prerequisites for entry to various levels, and the performance gap between girls and boys in mathematics (advantaging boys) and in French (advantaging girls).
In detail, results in French have made little progress, except for “fluency”, a term that refers to reading speed – a technical skill, the ability to decode, but essential for understanding texts, National Education insisted to journalists. This progressed, especially in year 6ewhere an average of two thirds of students are able to read the required minimum of 120 words in one minute. In this subject, REP+ students are those who have made the best progress: in four years (fluency has been assessed since 2021), they have improved from 36% to 43% of the group passing the 120 words read in a minute test. However, these results are still far below those achieved by the public sector, with the exception of priority education (60% of students achieved this achievement, compared to 52% in 2021) and the private sector (71%).
In mathematics, the performance gap between priority education students and those educated outside priority education is also likely to narrow, particularly in CP, where the gap in “comparing numbers” skills, which was 16 points in 2019, will be just 11 points in 2025. This result is driven by the progress of priority education students.
Uncertain impact
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