Education Ministerial Statistical Office
The Ministerial Statistical Office for Education is the Directorate of Evaluation, Forecasting and Performance Monitoring (DEPP).
The DEPP is a department of the central administration that falls under the umbrella of the Secretariat-General of the Ministry of National Education and Youth and Ministry of Higher Education and Research.
Main missions
The DEPP is responsible for the design and management of the statistical information system on teaching, the dissemination of its results as well as analyses that permit clarification of these statistics, including in international comparisons.
It reports on the state of the training and education system and contributes to evaluating it through studies and research that it conducts or appoints other research bodies to carry out.
The DEPP’s activities are organised around four major themes. These are students, staff, establishments and territories. It reports on them through studies, analyses, indicators and statistical data.
The missions of the DEPP stem from its dual positioning as both a directorate of the Ministry responsible for national Education and the ministerial statistical office responsible for statistics on education.
It produces statistics and objective, detailed studies on the education system in order to contribute to:
- a public debate on quality in education;
- education steering assistance;
- the evaluation of the education system in all senses (including the assessment of students (with the student skills assessments that it manages: national and international, on sample or exhaustive), of establishments, of territories and of systems and the education system as a whole).
The DEPP’s missions also encompass two specific dimensions, territorial and international:
- territorial as it coordinates the educational statistics network that it is part of along with statistical services in academies (the SSA);
- international because it is involved in European and international activities. The DEPP provides European and international representation and expertise functions in statistics, indicators and studies on education, and is the operator in France of the PISA international surveys on student competencies with the OECD, and TIMSS or PIRLS with the IEA, as well as on TALIS teachers with the OECD.
Statistical production
The DEPP is responsible for the statistical information system of the Ministry in charge of education in France. It is charged with handling the repositories, directories and classifications used in the information systems of the Ministry in charge of education. This allows it to guarantee the coherence of the data produced by its various services. The DEPP builds and manages information systems that are fed by Ministry management data, which it employs and then shares the results. The entity completes these data sources with surveys on students or apprentices, staff and establishments.
It creates, implements and uses student skills assessments, at various levels and via representative samples or comprehensively.
Furthermore, it establishes the Education Account.
Finally, the DEPP is responsible for statistics and surveys at the European and wider international level on education and assesses international data in order to judge their relevance in international comparisons.
Studies and forecasting
The DEPP reports on the state of the training and education system and assesses it through studies and research that it carries out, alone or in conjunction with research bodies. These analyses allow for reporting on the education system, how it evolves and its disparities in socio-economic terms as well as by territories. They also contribute to evaluating the education system in all its facets, such as student assessments, the evaluation of establishments, territories, measures and the education system as a whole.
The DEPP produces analysis work that clarifies the design and formulation of public policy by working in consultation with the Minister's office and the operational departments: creating forecasts about the evolutions of student numbers. In the context of the preparation of the finance law and for the allocation of resources, it produces performance indicators (LOLF), academic indicators for management dialogue and policy monitoring indicators or Ministerial plans such as Male/Female and Girl/Boy indicators.
The DEPP builds tools, decision support tools like resource allocation models and the priority education model, and tools to assist pedagogical and strategic management with the implementation of comprehensive evaluations of students entering year 2, year 3, year 7 and year 11.
Dissemination
One of the DEPP’s priorities, in order to shine light on public debate and collective choices, is to draw up and make available on its website relevant, objective and documented information:
- in the form of tables, maps, graphics, time sets;
- in the form of studies and analyses with associated data.
All of the DEPP’s work and the associated data are available free of charge on its Ouvrir dans un nouvel ongletÉtudes et statistiques (Studies and Statistics) website.