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.
December 30, 2022 at 11:26 am
But note that, when it comes to mathematics, France is still on par with the United States and the world’s leading research center for mathematics. This is despite the fact that French kids’ performance in PISA math assessments is merely average, and despite France’s math funding being only a fraction of that of the United States. (Source: https://nintil.com/us-science-leadership/)
December 30, 2022 at 1:15 pm
The level of maths research departements in France is reflecting on earlier generations (and the influx of great mathematicians trained abroad) but the latest, ill-conceived, reformation of math curricula in high school should have a tremendous impact on the coming generation. On top of the COVID trauma.