The government decided this Wednesday to reconsider the contested “reduction” of overtime in middle and high schools. This measure, initially planned until the end of the school year, was expected to allow budgetary savings. “The Minister of National Education and Youth has given instructions that, from tomorrow (Thursday), the academies recover the budgetary resources initially notified in order to continue the allocation of overtime in establishments,” declared the rue de Grenelle in a press release.
At the start of the week, the rectorates announced to school heads “a measure to reduce overtime allocations and allowances for special missions”. The reduction, or even in certain cases the elimination of this budgetary envelope at the hand of principals and principals to finance measures such as “homework done” or academic support, with the result of the pure and simple cessation of these projects, had given rise to since strong emotion among Education staff relayed by their unions.
“Budgetary prudence”
The rectorates had justified this measure in application of the 10 billion euro cut imposed by Bercy on the 2024 budget of administrations. For National Education, it is a question of finding a little less than 692 million euros in savings. “Overtime is maintained. This is good news,” commented those close to Minister of National Education and Youth Nicole Belloubet.
According to this source, the messages sent by the rectors to the heads of establishments had been sent “out of budgetary prudence”, because “it had been deemed prudent to slow down overtime without suspending it completely”. Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, the leading union of middle and high schools, believes that the ministerial announcement is “a happy surprise” but also expresses her “disbelief” in the face of the sequence of decisions and its “vigilance” on future budget cuts.