2023-06-15 17:12:55
It was in government drawers since several weeks. From March 2024, Universal National Service (SNU) will be offered from March 2024 as a 12-day course on school time for second-grade students, but only volunteers. Secretary of State for Youth Sarah El Haïry announced this Thursday, after more than a month of discussions on the evolution of the UNS with the trade unions to try to achieve a concrete project.
“There will be no obligation, a bit like a school trip. This stay will cost nothing to the establishments or the parents. This new modality will coexist with the cohesion stays chosen individually by the young people during their holidays”, detailed in an interview with the Figaro Sarah El Haïry, in charge of the SNU, project dear to Emmanuel Macron.
This formula “will allow second-year students, from voluntary high schools, to carry out the 12-day cohesion stay – first stage of the SNU – during school time, as part of a class educational project”, he said. – she continued.
“All” students will be able to participate
These pupils aged 15 to 16 will spend their stay “in a department other than their own (…), in the same place as the rest (volunteer pupils) of their class, but they will be mixed in households with other young people they don’t know,” she says. No details have been made on what will happen to students who do not wish to participate in this trip.
“All” students will be able to participate, including those who are not of French nationality, says Sarah El Haïry’s office. They will also wear the prescribed uniform. A call for projects will be launched “within a few days and schools will have until next fall to respond”, it was added.
Tensions of the educational community
The UNS has been launched in 2019 in a targeted manner, with the aim of eventually making it universal, and therefore generalized and compulsory. For the time being, it only concerns young volunteers (32,000 in 2022) and its generalization is met with strong resistance. The Head of State had promised in his vows of December 31 to lay “in the very next weeks or months the first milestones of a universal national service”.
Responding to the criticisms of the unions, which point in particular to the loss of two weeks of lessons for the benefit of the SNU, Sarah El Haïry assumes to propose “a new modality to a class”, which it would be “a pity to deprive oneself”.
Sophie Vénétitay, at the head of the Snes-FSU, denounces “a passage in force”. “For months, the majority of educational actors have been explaining that the UNS is not the solution. Children need school, not this device,” she added. This announcement of the evolution of the SNU is, according to her, “confirmation that the school is indeed at the heart of Emmanuel Macron’s political project”.
A mandatory day?
In a recent press release, all the unions of teachers, high school students and the federation of parents of FCPE students had denounced “the cost of a presidential gadget disconnected from reality”. A report from the Senate, published in early March, recommended “suspending” the generalization of the SNU “in view of the uncertainties” of the project, particularly in terms of costs, “probably greater than 2 billion euros” per year.
Asked about the “generalization of this device”, the Secretary of State explained that “the debate is open”. “The question of obligation is not a taboo. But our goal is to create excitement, not coercion.”
#Universal #National #Service #offered #12day #internship #secondyear #students #volunteer