How much does grade repetition cost in primary and secondary education in France?

Although it has been in sharp and steady decline for the past twenty years or so, grade repetition remains a widespread practice in France: every year, it affects nearly 270,000 pupils in primary and secondary education. By the age of 15, 28 per cent of young people have undergone grade repetition at least once during their schooling (compared with an average of 12 per cent in OECD countries). However, grade repetition is regularly criticised as a means of tackling academic failure that is not only ineffective but also extremely costly. This IPP Policy Brief contributes to this debate by assessing the budgetary cost of grade repetition in primary and secondary education in France, and by simulating the effects of its abolition on the dynamics of education spending. Based on an analysis of the educational trajectories of pupils born in 1992, this paper shows that, on average, grade repetition delays leaving the education system by one year, whilst also altering the nature of the courses undertaken. The annual cost of grade repetition (excluding final-year classes) is estimated at around 2 billion euros. However, if grade repetition were abolished from the start of the 2015 academic year, the full amount of these annual savings could only be made available from the start of the 2027 academic year. These findings suggest that the educational resources freed up by abolishing grade repetition would be potentially significant but could only be reallocated to alternative schemes very gradually.