There was no point in packing your school bag this Tuesday morning, and it will be the same this Wednesday. Since this Tuesday, the Nelson-Mandela school in Saint-Herblain near Nantes has been running almost empty while the vast majority of eighteen teachers have started a “renewable strike” movement. A new burst of anger in this establishment of 380 students which has been fighting for almost ten years to reintegrate the map ofpriority educationin order to obtain “sufficient” means to teach.
Located very close to one of the neighborhoods the poorest de France (the poverty rate reaches 64%), the Sillon de Bretagne, it is however excluded from the list of “REP +” establishments because it is attached to a college where social diversity is considered more satisfactory. A situation experienced as a “bug”, an “absurdity”, even an “injustice”, according to the parents and teachers interviewed. A misunderstanding that we find in the around 500 schools in France, nicknamed “orphans”, which are in the same situation according to a 2019 report.
“Overcrowded” classes
To Nelson-Mandela, we present ourselves as an “emblem”. It must be said that this school, where children of around forty different nationalities attend, has been talked about for a long time, even in the corridors of the Ministry of National Education or in the hemicycle of the Assembly. . The MP (LFI) Ségolène Amiot made it one of his hobby horses, the mayor of the city (PS) Bertrand Affilé launched a call to his counterparts throughout the country, while dozens of letters of all kinds have been sent… without a satisfactory response so far. Each time, a shocking argument comes up against a system criticized for its rigidity: the famous student social positioning index (IPS), which here is only 70, the 8th lowest in the Loire-Atlantique department. …
“In the meantime, we are facing overcrowded classes of around 22 students, while schools which have the label have double numbers, between 15 and 18 for example in CP,” calculates Basile Guérin, teacher in small and medium sections and unionized at Sud Education. We can no longer do one essential thing, which is individualization. At the end of the day, we did not speak to all the students, nor to all the parents for that matter. » A problem when half of the families who attend the establishment have a mother tongue other than French.
“The same chances as others”
At the foot of a large banner, Imane oscillates between hope and anger. “We talk about the risks of level groups in middle school but in Mandela, social sorting has already taken place since 2015, regrets this mother of three children, delegate of the parents of students, in solidarity with the teachers. Since November, there have been 81 unreplaced absences. Some families send their children to the private sector… How do you want those who stay to have the same opportunities as the others? »
Questions that all the families concerned in France ask themselves, such as in Bassens (Gironde), where the Rosa-Bonheur school group is also one of the “forgotten” establishments. Due to a lack of resources, the shortcomings of students arriving in 6th grade are worrying, given the results of the evaluations. “In French, 61.53% obtain unsatisfactory results, according to the FCPE. In mathematics, almost one in two children has difficulty [45,15 %]. »
Sharing this observation, and despite the implementation of a local support contract (CLA) deemed insufficient, the teachers of Saint-Herblain also highlight the “suffering at work” of the teams, with a high turnover. “Our colleagues in REP + receive a bonus of 400 euros which escapes us,” continues Basile Guérin. The same goes for the half-day training sessions which were to allow us to organize the running of the school. Suddenly, the teachers leave. On average, seniority is less than three years here. So you have to start all over again each time. »
Requested by 20 minutes On this first day of the strike, the Nantes academy did not respond to the request. Expected for several years, the overhaul of the priority education map should not begin before next year. “It will be urgent and necessary to retake a photograph,” believes Cécile Rossard, for the Sgen-CFDT. Because if we want more and more diversity in colleges, but they remain the only criterion, there risks being more and more orphan schools. »