• The shortage of teachers in certain disciplines also affects Catholic education.

  • To ensure the start of the school year, the heads of establishments have recruited substitutes, the equivalent of contract workers in the public sector.

  • But recruiting them is a challenge, especially because they are paid less in the private sector than in the public sector.

Parents who enrolled their children in private this year, thinking they would never have holes in their schedules, may be disappointed.

Because Catholic education is not spared by the crisis of teaching vocations.

"If at the start of the year, we have almost succeeded in putting a teacher in front of each student, the question of replacements will quickly arise", admitted this Thursday Philippe Delorme, the general secretary of Catholic Education, during his back-to-school press conference.

“We had a few reports of holes in the schedules.

But the problems were quickly resolved.

However, we remain worried about the capacity that establishments will have to replace teachers on sick leave in the coming months, “says Gilles Demarquet, president of the Association of parents of free education students (Apel).

Substitutes called in as reinforcements

Because if more than 4,000 teaching posts, out of a total of 27,332, were not filled during the 2022 competitions for public education, the problem also arises for those in private education: "In the first degree , 800 positions have not been filled (i.e. 1.6%), and 2,800 in the second (i.e. 3.1%)”, indicates Yann Diraison, assistant to the general secretary of Catholic education.

“As in the public, it is above all maths, English, German, classics, SVT and physics and chemistry that pose a problem.

And the academies of Créteil and Versailles are the most affected”, specifies Philippe Delorme.

To cope with this lack of teachers, Catholic education under contract uses substitute teachers, the equivalent of contract teachers in the public sector.

An appeal that does not seem to pose a problem for parents of students: “Very often, they do not know the status of teachers.

In addition, the substitutes, many of whom have worked in other sectors before, bring a different experience to the students, ”says Gilles Demarquet.

The public pays its contractors better

But it's not easy to recruit them knowing that a temporary teacher is better paid in the public than in the private sector: "The differential has been reduced in recent years, but it is still around 300 to 400 euros gross per month », notes Yann Diraison.

Substitutes therefore start at around 1,500 euros gross for full-time.

And these new recruits are all the more difficult to find since after the confinements, certain substitutes left the big cities to settle in the provinces.



To attract candidates, Catholic education launched a major national communication campaign last March entitled “I become a teacher, why not you?

".

“Flyers were distributed, videos were broadcast on social networks, and diocesan directors mobilized to preach the good word and organize information meetings.

And some parents of students who were thinking about a retraining heard us, ”explains Nathalie Tretiakow, assistant to the general secretary of Catholic education.

Human support

The private sector also relies on the good reception of substitutes to encourage vocations.

Unlike the public sector, in the private sector, it is the heads of establishment who constitute their team.

“They strive to recruit people who will know how to work collectively

and support the establishment project", observes Gilles Demarquet.

The fact that the headteacher is the recruiter also affects the quality of support for new hires, according to Philippe Delorme: "They take the time with the substitutes, ensure that they are sponsored, meet them regularly to see if everything is going well and encourage them to take the internal competitions".

But as in the public, the substitutes benefit from a minimalist training of a few days, in the best cases, before being propelled in class.

They are therefore formed on the job.

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