French fight slide in global reading table

FRENCH primary pupils are to endure dictation every day, the education ministry announced yesterday, after the country slipped humiliatingly in a world table for reading and literacy in which England made strong gains.

Dictation has always played an im- portant part in language lessons in France, whose grammar is notoriously complex and hard to master. There are even national dictation competitions involving celebrity literary figures.

Yet language lovers were appalled to discover that the French had yet again lost ground in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, which conducted tests on almost 320,000 10-year-olds around the world.

France was ranked 34th out of 50, and was one of just two countries – along with the Netherlands – that had a lower score than in 2001. By comparison, the Republic of Ireland came fourth, with Russia first, and Singapore and Hong Kong close behind. Northern Ireland came in joint sixth place, with England in joint eighth.

Girls are ahead of boys in almost every country taking the tests.

The study also found that French pupils were weak at understanding long texts. Describing the results as “unsatisfactory and worrying”, Jean-michel Blanquer, France’s education minister, said: “Daily dictation must become a reality in our primary schools.”

Other measures include new tests for six- and seven-year-olds and a better choice of manuals. Mr Blanquer pointed out that President Macron had homed in on primary schools by halving class sizes for six-year-olds in poor areas to boost “the fundamentals”.