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FREN

School, Bruno Retailleau

Ability groups, organisation of lower secondary school: End of the single lower secondary school: entrance exam for 6e, ability groups

Direction of change: increase, compared with current law.

The lever. Organisation of classes in lower secondary school: ability or needs-based groups, mixed-ability classes, repeating a year, brevet. Direction rule: ↑ more ability groups or streamed classes.

« Instaurer un examen d'entrée en sixième qui déterminera l'affectation du collégien dans des groupes de niveau »1

Translation by the editorsIntroduce an entrance examination for sixième (first year of lower secondary school) which will determine the pupil's assignment to ability groups

Encoding

No cost-schedule parameter for this position: see the costing for the reason.

Costing

Announced by the candidate

not announced

The programme does not cost this measure.

Published costings

none

No external costing of this position recorded to date.

Our calculation

not costed

Entrance exam for 6e (first year of lower secondary school) and ability groups with no resources announced: the cost is not documented.

Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule

Current law. « Choc des savoirs » reform: ability groups in French and mathematics in the first two years of lower secondary school (6e and 5e) since the start of the 2024 school year. Their extension to 4e and 3e was made optional by the minister E. Borne. The scheme drew on 2,800 dedicated posts in 2024-2025.

Horizon. full year 2032, €bn/year

Limits. Calculation: 2,800 FTE × €48,336 (cost excluding CAS for primary, used for lack of a checked secondary cost; secondary costs more, hence the high value). Extension to 4e and 3e (the last two years of lower secondary school) is a simple extrapolation (same number of classes), without official costing. An abolition “gains” only if the posts are returned to the budget, and not redeployed to reducing class sizes. Secondary cost since checked: €51,198 loaded excluding CAS on average (PAP 2024), i.e. 2,800 FTE × €51,198 ≈ €0.14bn. “Net” convention (R9): at the centre and as lower bound, this cost brought back to pay for active service (51,198 / 1.157 ≈ €44,250, i.e. €0.12bn; 48,336 / 1.145 also gives 0.12); as upper bound, full employer cost with the CAS Pensions (editors' calculation). No official costing of extending the groups to 4e and 3e was found (in 2024-2025, 340 FTE were used there for support, not for groups). Option extension-4e-3e (rule on public bases, 18 October 2026): (2,800 − 340) = 2,460 FTE × €44,250 (secondary cost brought back to pay for active service) ≈ €0.11bn at the centre; 2,460 × €71,400 (full employer cost, CAS Pensions included, that of the upper bound for abolition: €0.2bn / 2,800) ≈ €0.18bn as upper bound; 0 as lower bound if the extension is carried out with constant resources, within the schools' hours (editors' calculations).

How to read these amounts. These are static costs and revenues, with no feedback effect, over a full year: nothing on growth, employment or the revenue that economic activity would gain or lose. A higher net cost does not on its own make a worse policy, nor net savings a better one: each programme rests on an economic model (demand-led stimulus, lower compulsory levies, consolidation of the public accounts…) that the cost schedule does not settle. GDP itself measures a volume of activity, not well-being or the usefulness of what is produced. Economic models and feedback effects.

This lever in the method · Costing for Bruno Retailleau

  1. Projet Retailleau, mesure n°17 « Tourner la page du collège unique ». Read the programme page.

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