They resigned from National Education and tell us why

• Voluntary permanent departures among public teachers in post at National Education increased from 1,554 in 2019-2020 to 2,286 in 2020-2021.

• The causes are multiple.

  Many teachers who resigned and who responded to our call for witnesses cite their salary dissatisfaction.

• Also mentioned are the deterioration of working conditions in recent years, stronger tensions with parents and incessant reforms that do not take into account the realities on the ground.

One disappointment after another, they ended up making the decision to change jobs.

Every year, teachers leave the National Education.

The number of teacher resignations has also increased.

Voluntary permanent departures among public teachers in post at National Education thus fell from 1,554 in 2019-2020 to 2,286 in 2020-2021.

And if we go back even further, the comparison is even more obvious: in 2008-2009, there were 364 resignations.

An increase that Rue de Grenelle is trying to minimize: “Since January 1, 2020, teachers have the possibility of leaving with a conventional break.

This explains this sharp increase.

Admittedly, the proportion of departures is not very high with regard to the 850,000 teachers practicing in France.

But in a context of declining competition registrations, these departures are of concern.

“Over the last five school years, the increase in resignations is around 200 more resigners each year”, underlined a study by the Ministry of Education entitled

and published in 2020. It showed that school teachers were those who left the ship the most: “their resignation rate is 0.24% compared to 0.18% of certified, 0.14% of agrégé and 0.10 % of PLP (professional high school teacher).

Another observation: it is the trainee teachers who throw in the towel the most.

Because very often, they become aware of the gap between their professional ideals and the reality on the ground.

Remuneration considered insufficient

These resignations are multifactorial.

But among the reasons most mentioned by the former teachers who responded to our call for witnesses, is their salary dissatisfaction: "I was at 2,300 euros after ten years while being a graduate of a Master 2, it seemed to me insufficient,” confides Nicolas, a former Physics-Chemistry professor who has become an environmental inspector.

Same observation with David, ex-professor of philosophy, who now works at the Ministry of the Interior: “I found that my remuneration and my working conditions were not in line with the difficulty of the competition that I had obtained.

" Cendrine, who resigned from her post as a school teacher to become a real estate agent, also confides that the salary question played a lot: "Teachers work a lot of hours who do not see each other:

meetings between noon and two or in the evening, appointments with parents, preparation and correction.

We also often buy equipment with our own money.

At the end of the year, that figure, ”she underlines.

The deterioration of their working conditions is also often mentioned.

“They deteriorated considerably with the reform of the high school: more students per class, but also courses where I felt completely useless like scientific education, 1 hour per week in front of 35 general first students in an amphitheater.

Managing the heterogeneity of my audience was sometimes difficult, having to carry out a demanding program with a panel of students with very varied profiles!

If some high school students were of a correct level, others were on the verge of illiteracy, and putting them to work was then particularly difficult”, evokes Nicolas.

Fanny, who is currently preparing her retraining, also finds that the working conditions have become tougher:

“We are more educators (respect and notions of politeness are to be taught), social workers, psychologists.

We are little or not trained in the realities on the ground: the various forms of disability or the difficulties or facilities for learning”.

Etienne did not last long: he resigned from his post as a History-Geography teacher after two years.

"The difficulties in managing the discipline of college students immediately made me want to stop," he says.

"Fed up with successive reforms that never take into account the reality on the ground"

Some also mention the tense relationship with the parents of students.

This is what Manon, a former plastic arts teacher, says: “I resigned in December because I constantly had to justify myself to the parents, and even sometimes to the students.

In some schools, parents make the law.

They call principals to criticize teachers for thinking that their children can't lie… To protect myself, I took pictures of the projects of students who did not have the average.

Jérôme also evokes “the deleterious climate caused by a tiny part of the parents of students”.

“They are happy to invent false problems, to complain directly to our superiors.

This is often felt as injustice and it wears out, makes you nervous and worried about everything, all the time, ”he recalls.

Finally, some teachers seem to no longer find meaning in what they do.

“Fed up with successive reforms that never take into account the reality on the ground,” says Pascale, who has thrown in the towel after twenty-two years of teaching Spanish.

“I no longer liked my supervisory ministry and its delirious management.

And the Covid-19 crisis and its management, among other things, decided me definitively, ”also testifies Emilie.

The teacher recruitment crisis being a priority issue for the new Minister of Education, he has already undertaken to review salaries upwards.

“We must increase wages and salaries, this is what we are going to discuss with the trade unions, to create a shock of attractiveness in order to ensure that this profession is revalued”, insisted Pap Ndiaye on Thursday. on France Inter.

But to keep teachers in post, he will also have to tackle the delicate question of working conditions, but also the possibilities of evolution in National Education...

Company

Education: Why the teacher recruitment crisis is getting worse

Company

Does a Minister of Education necessarily have to enroll his children in public education?

• Company

• Education

• Teacher

• Resignation

• Teacher