It is indeed the end of the holidays. Some 12 million students – 6.4 million schoolchildren, 3.4 million college students and 2.2 million high school students – are returning to class on Monday, September 4, in France.
Arrived in July Rue de Grenelle, Gabriel Attal saw his first comeback in the costume of Minister of National Education. From the purchase price of school supplies to the weight of the school bag, which he wishes to see halved, as he declared on Sunday evening on M6, the minister has multiplied the announcements, with the stated desire to seize subjects “concrete”.
However, it was the ban on the abaya, a long traditional dress covering the body worn by certain Muslim students, which dominated the start of the school year in the media. The executive, in the name of the defense of secularism, called for “block” on this ban, which also applies to the wearing of qamis, the male version of this garment. According to the provisions of the 2004 law prohibiting the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols, recalcitrant pupils will be welcomed by the establishment but not in class, and a phase of dialogue will open up between the family and the national education system.
These are 513 establishments − out of the approximately 48,000 schools and 10,500 colleges and high schools − who have been identified as “potentially affected by these issuesassured Mr. Attal on RTL, Monday morning. There are just over 2,000 trained personnel who have been positioned in establishments for which we know that this subject will arise”.
In the wake of the Head of State, Emmanuel Macron, who decided to go to school “his reserved domain”, the government, two months after the riots, wishes to adopt a line of firmness in educational matters. On secularism or fundamental knowledge, on which Gabriel Attal wants “package”. However, while school heads have welcomed the ban on the abaya, many teachers believe that the issue “must not hide the real problems on the ground”.
“Republican Duty”
The start of the new school year will indeed take place again under tension due to a crisis in the recruitment of teachers – a phenomenon which has increased since last year –, with, in 2023, more than 3,100 vacancies not filled in the teacher competitions. . In the Vaucluse, Mr. Macron reaffirmed on Friday that the promise of“a teacher in front of each class” at the start of the school year would be ” outfit “ : “a republican duty”according to him.
According to a survey by the Teachers’ Union-UNSA, conducted among 2,000 people, 68% of teachers questioned said they feared that there would be a lack of staff at the start of the school year.
The executive highlights its policy of upgrading “historical”, which is aimed in particular at the start of a career. Despite the budgetary effort made, the unions welcomed these measures with great reservations, and with open hostility to the implementation of the “pact”. This provides for salary increases in return for new tasks, in particular to perform short-term replacements, a sea serpent in national education. The government believes it can act as a remedy to tackle the 15 million unreplaced hours per year.
Elisabeth Borne and Gabriel Attal on the move
On Monday, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, and Mr. Attal, who will go to Ille-et-Vilaine − to the Armandine-Mallet school in Saint-Germain-sur-Ille and to the Simone-Veil general and technological high school in Liffré −, will address the subject of strengthening the fundamentals in mathematics and reading, but also the “pact”, supposed to offer “better recognition of the commitment of teachers”.
The fight against harassment − referred to as “ great cause of the 2023-2024 school year » by Mr. Attal − will also be another priority. As for the fact that harassed and harassed students can find themselves in the same establishment despite reports, Mr. Attal recognizes a problem of organization of the Ministry of National Education, while ensuring that there is no “ill will in [s]we ministry », on RTL. A new plan will be unveiled by the end of September. In France, one child in ten claims to be a victim of bullying.
For the Federation of Parents’ Councils (FCPE), the subject of the abaya should not “not to hide the issues related to the lack of management staff, AESH [accompagnants d’élève en situation de handicap]nurses (…) or the priority to be given to the fight against bullying, overcrowded class sizes, the fight against dropping out of school, the thousands of homeless children. Parents’ concerns are also inclusive schooling, which remains an unfulfilled promise for many children with disabilities, the inflation that affects families on a daily basis, high school students without assignments “.