95% eeeech….

A question on the French public radio, France Inter, in a weekly high school students quizz:

If a lamp bulb factory has a constant failure rate of 5%, how many bulbs should it at least produce to deliver 1900 operational bulbs?

To which the pair taking part in the quizz, in their final year of high school and hence entering university next year (!), could not answer… Another illustration of the cataclysmic collapse of maths skills in French schools.

Samuel Paty [in memoriam]

the twilight of French mathematics

the decline of the French [maths] empire

In Le Monde edition of Nov 5, an article on the difficulty of maths departments to attract students, especially in master programs and in the training of secondary school maths teachers (Agrégation & CAPES), where the number of candidates usually does not reach the number of potential positions… And also on the deep changes in the training of secondary school pupils, who over the past five years have lost a considerable amount of maths bases and hence are found missing when entering the university level. (Or, put otherwise, have a lower level in maths that implies a strong modification of our own programs and possibly the addition of an extra year or at least semester to the bachelor degree…) For instance, a few weeks ago, I realised for instance that my third year class had little idea of a conditional density and teaching measure theory at this level becomes more and more of a challenge!