“It’s the institution that is responsible”: how the region’s unions react to the Oudéa-Castera controversy

Les syndicats estiment que le manque d'attractivité du métier est aussi responsable du nombre d'heures perdues. Midi Libre – JEAN MICHEL MART

Representatives of teachers, management staff, parents, they are unanimous: it is the organization of National Education which leads to the non-replacement of many hours of lessons which are not not provided by teachers. 

"We were already stunned that the ministry was grouped with that of sports in the middle of the year of the Olympic Games, but this contemptuous exit is a calamity. If the minister had an ounce of dignity, she would give up…"

The tone is set. Like Pascale Thoirey-Bouyahmed, teacher at the Condorcet college in Nîmes and member of SNUIPP-FSU du Gard, the unions have risen against Amélie Oudéa-Castera. “She says there are no replacements” whose fault ? Not the teachers who display the lowest rate of absenteeism, but the ministers, in particular the one who was at his side (Gabriel Attal, Editor's note) who have put in place & nbsp;unnecessary reforms. The pact is an English teacher who comes in front of students he doesn't know to replace a French teacher. It’s just patchwork to unclog the duty rooms,” she scolds.

"It'was effective…"

Pascale Thoirey-Bouyahmed still criticizes the decision, a few years ago, to abolish the system which prevailed in primary education. "We had replacement brigades which intervened by constituency. It was effective. Gard was a pilot department to test a new formula where software manages replacement holders… Since then, it's been a disaster.

The academic co-secretary of Snalc, Jessica Boyer, broadens the debate to the problem of attractiveness of the profession. "Thousands of positions have been eliminated by the government to which Ms. Oudéa Castera belongs and today, there is a lack of personnel to carry out replacements because we cannot recruit. The minister should rather have said that she was going to make these subjects her hobby horse, rather than stigmatizing teachers in this way.

"The teachers are at work"

Florent Martin, academic secretary of SNPDEN who represents management staff, also recalls that "the majority of course hours not provided are due to the functioning of the institution. 80% of these are teachers summoned for a jury, to supervise an exam or for training. They are at work. He believes that the teachers' pact is going in the right direction. It may take two years to gain flexibility and acquire the right reflexes, but this shows that the subject is widely taken into account in National Education. The heads of establishments were shocked by the minister's comments because the problem exists just as much in the private sector. The hand of God does not protect against viruses, he said ironically.

The private sector, "far from being a panacea"

Jacky Bowen, president of the FCPE de l’Hérault, was also shocked by what he translated as "a call from the minister to join the private sector – far from being a panacea -, while it is the institution which is responsible for uninsured courses. The rectorate is, for example, unable to replace a philosophy teacher who has been absent for a long time at the Champollion high school in Lattes. But it’s quite simply because there is a lack of teachers. This creates overcrowded classes, up to 38 students in high schools, a thousand students without assignment… We must work towards better teaching conditions and then we will find stability. And it’s a parent who says it…

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