“around 200 teaching positions” to be filled in middle and high schools, according to Gabriel Attal

2023-09-15 17:11:08
Gabriel Attal visits a classroom, in the Bourbon college in Saint-Denis, in Reunion, August 17, 2023. OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/MYOP POUR “LE MONDE”

This is one of the most sensitive subjects of the first school year for the Minister of Education: the lack of teachers in schools. While Gabriel Attal is committed to ensuring that there is “a teacher in front of each student” at the start of the school year, the minister announced Friday September 15 that there remained “around 200 positions to be filled in secondary education”.

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This figure is “to be compared to the 500,000 secondary school teachers, so we see that this is less than 0.1% of the positions that remain to be filled”, he added during a trip to a middle school and a primary school in Eure-et-Loir. In primary schools, these are “155 vacant positions” which remain to be filled, it was specified in the minister’s entourage.

An estimate that contrasts with that of the unions. According to a survey carried out in 508 establishments and published Monday September 11 by the SNES-FSU, the first secondary education union, there is a shortage on average “at least one teacher in 48% of middle and high schools” observed. The ministry considers, however, that this study “does not distinguish vacancies which are linked to unfilled positions from those linked to a one-off absence of teachers”which are intended to be “resolved or replaced quickly”.

In another survey published on Wednesday September 13, SNPDEN-UNSA, the leading union of school heads, estimated that more than one teacher was missing in 58% of middle and high schools after September 1. For his part, Gabriel Attal considers that “the subject that has been highlighted by the union organizations is teachers who have been assigned to a position – which is therefore filled – but who are absent at the start of the school year, either for a long period of time, or for a short duration “.

A few days before the start of the school year, Emmanuel Macron assured that the promise of“a teacher in front of each class” at the start of the school year would be ” outfit “. On the evening of the start of the school year, Gabriel Attal was more nuanced, conceding that“we could have difficulties here or there”, particularly in middle and high school. On Friday, the latter further acknowledged that“there are many absences that are not replaced”, specifying that “what is certain is that it is a phenomenon that exists, and families say so.”

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The World with AFP