"We hope that the number of class closures will remain limited"

• Some 12.4 million French students must return to class this Thursday after a school year again turned upside down by the health crisis.

• The opportunity for the Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, to come back to

  20 Minutes

  on the consequences of the pandemic on the achievements of students.

• It details the support mechanisms planned for each level and the human resources that will be allocated to the establishments during the start of the school year.

This is his last school year of the five-year term.

And it will not be easy, at a time when the circulation of the Delta variant worries the authorities.

The Minister of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, has shown his desire to lose "as few hours of lessons as possible" to the students.

For

20 Minutes

, he

looks

back on the consequences of the coronavirus crisis on the level of students and the actions implemented by the Rue de Grenelle to try to limit educational inequalities. 

What are the consequences of the coronavirus crisis on the level of elementary school students?

The national assessments of CP and CE1 had shown in September 2020 a small decline in the level of students compared to September 2019, due to confinement.

But a catch-up took place after the return to class, and the evaluations of January 2021 were reassuring.

Whenever they revealed weaknesses, personalized help was put in place.

For all other primary classes, teachers have other assessment tools at the start of the year, which they can use freely and which allow them to organize personalized assistance for pupils who need it.

But the evaluations of January 2021 had clearly shown that the students of Rep had less caught up ...

Since 2017, the gap in level between priority education students and others has been reduced, in particular through the creation of classes of 12 students in these territories.

At this start of the school year, nearly 330,000 students are benefiting from this split class format.

Containment was able to temporarily stop the reduction of this gap, but we have moved forward, and we will measure the results with the assessments of September 2021.

Has this crisis not reinforced educational inequalities which are correlated with social inequalities?

This risk is very great on a global scale.

Half of American children have been out of school for about a year, and educational inequalities have increased dramatically.

In France, the first confinement was an accelerator of inequalities, but since then we have kept schools open as much as possible in 2020 and 2021, and we have continued proactive policies for the most disadvantaged students.

As a result, we will succeed in ensuring that inequalities do not increase because of the health crisis.

With the closure of primary classes from the first case of Covid-19, don't you fear educational breaks that will be detrimental for students?

We hope that the number of closures will remain limited, as was the case in 2020-2021, where it remained below 0.2%.

Moreover, in Reunion, which made its comeback two weeks ago with an epidemic context comparable to that of the metropolis, we are below 0.2% of closed classes.

But we remain cautious because different scenarios are possible.

What support systems will you offer in primary?

Personalized assistance will be fully mobilized.

And about 300,000 students have benefited from educational success internships during the summer.

Others will be organized during the All Saints holidays.

In addition, the rectorates set up school support with local communities, through associations or by funding teachers overtime.

The unions deplore the very insufficient number of Rased (networks of specialized aid for pupils in difficulty).

What do you say to them?

As you know, the Raseds

bring together psychologists and teachers from specialized schools.

We are going to open recruitments for school psychologists, whom we have particularly needed since the Covid-19 crisis.

This year, 1,800 jobs have been cut in secondary education, while there will be 36,000 more students.

Isn't it dangerous at a time when some students have weaknesses?

During this five-year term, we have increased the budgets of National Education as they had never been (+ 6 billion euros). This has served us to invest in primary education so that students arrive in secondary school with consolidated knowledge in CM2. It is better to have a class of 24 rather than 23 in 6th if the pupils know how to write and count well. At this start of the school year, 2,000 positions are created in primary education while there are fewer students due to demographic change. I fully assume that I have devoted a significant part of our budgetary resources to primary education. We have stemmed the decline in French and mathematics. And many of the seeds that we have sown will gradually bear fruit.

In secondary education, we compensate for the loss of positions by working overtime.

This should not have an impact on the supervision rate of each class.

It should also be remembered that school demographics will be declining over the next few years and that this reduction in enrollment is already affecting the first three levels of college.

The average number of students per class in high school will be 30. Isn't that too important?

The supervision rate has stabilized, it has not deteriorated.

And this average covers very different realities.

In vocational high school, the groups are smaller.

In general high school, disciplines are often split and students are often found in smaller groups in specialty education.

It is not every hour that the students meet at 30 in the classroom.

In high school, some students were in hybrid for at least half of the year.

Do you measure the effects on their learning?

Hybridization has not resulted in a general decline in knowledge, but a delay has been observed in some.

Hence the personalized help they will benefit from.

But remember that we are the only OECD country to have kept high schools open during the health crisis.

At the start of the school year, we are planning 1,500 full-time equivalent jobs in the form of overtime, to set up personalized assistance plans in secondary education.

Why not review the programs in middle and high school to take into account the difficulties of students after the Covid?

The sanitary situation for the vat was taken into account by adapting the conditions of the test.

For this year which begins, it is important to maintain our ambitions for the students.

All the more so with the high school reform, they are deepening their specialty teaching, because we assume that we work more and with more desire when we have chosen our subjects.

The demand for programs is greater and we must not lose this benefit.

This reinforces the value of the bac.

The “Homework done” * scheme benefited one in three college students last year, how can this ratio be improved?

My goal is that one in two college students will benefit from it.

And that the device benefits more college students who need it.

It is possible that in some colleges, we go so far as to impose it for students in difficulty.

But I have no doubt that dialogue with parents generates voluntary registrations.

Last year, we also set up “e-homework done”, for example so that rural pupils can benefit from it despite the problem of school transport.

At this start of the school year, there is still a lack of replacements in certain disciplines.

Can you assure the students that they will indeed have a teacher in each class?

Yes, there will obviously be a teacher in front of each class at the start of the school year, except for a few rare exceptions on which the services are working.

The problem will arise more during the year with sick leaves due to the health crisis.

We will have recruitment campaigns for contract workers and we are also encouraging the second careers of executives who want to enter National Education.

Especially since the attractiveness of the profession will be improved: in a year and a half, the entry salary of teachers has increased from 1,700 to 1,869 euros net and it takes the direction of the 2,000 net monthly in the short term.

What progress has been made in distance education over the past year and a half?

“My class at home” has continued to evolve technically.

At the start of the new school year, it is accessible via an individual URL for each teacher.

He can therefore manage his class at home from his computer without going through a common platform.

The content has also been enriched.

Since 2020, hundreds of thousands of teachers have been trained in distance education via Canopé.

As for the technical bugs on the regional ENTs, they were resolved after one day.

But more robust systems will be created to avoid this kind of traffic jam.

And one should also always be on the lookout for cyber attacks.

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* "Homework done" is a system that allows college students to be accompanied by a teacher or an education assistant, during a dedicated time, outside of school hours, to do their homework in their establishment. 

• Teacher

• Back to School

• Education

• Jean-Michel Blanquer

• Society