• The National Councils of Refoundation (CNR) dedicated to education aim to bring out, at the local level, initiatives likely to improve the success or the well-being of the pupils, or even to reduce educational inequalities.

  • The President of the Republic and the Minister of Education were traveling to Aix-en-Provence on Monday to attend a CNR in a college.

  • But it is clear that the education CNRs are few in number, the educational teams not having taken up the system for several reasons.

The mayonnaise did not take too much, you have to repeat the recipe.

Emmanuel Macron attended this Monday a National Council for Refoundation (CNR) devoted to education in Aix-en-Provence, in the company of Pap Ndiaye.

A consultation in a 6th grade class at Jas-de-Bouffan college with the aim of bringing out educational initiatives.

The president and his Minister of Education thus wanting to shine the spotlight on this device.

Because since October, voluntary schools, colleges and high schools can launch local CNRs.

These must give rise to projects that can aim to boost student success, improve their well-being or fight against inequalities.

Projects which, if validated by the rectorates, could be financed within the framework of an educational support fund endowed with 500 million euros over the five-year period.

These CNRs symbolize the new method that Emmanuel Macron wishes to follow and which consists in bringing out good ideas from the field.

Few debates in establishments

But to date, very few establishments have embarked on the adventure.

According to the report of the Council of Ministers of November 2, 840 schools had “already started a consultation”, and 7,500 planned to follow in their footsteps, or “13% of the total of establishments”.

Hence the promotion operation of Emmanuel Macron and Pap Ndiaye today.

A very meager initial assessment which finds its explanation in a turbulent return to school, according to Guislaine David, spokesperson for the SNIPP-FSU: "The heads of establishments had to manage the lack of teachers, provide replacements, and they are now facing a new wave of Covid-19.

They are not able to organize consultation with the educational team, local elected officials, parents of students…”.

Alexis Torchet, national secretary of the Sgen-CFDT, evokes the mental wear and tear of the teams: “The social climate is very degraded after two years of pandemic.

The educational teams have provided very intensive work and have no brain time available to engage in projects other than ensuring daily life.

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"We don't really see the point of the device"

This is without taking into account the skepticism of many teachers with regard to the CNRs: “We did not wait for the government to sit around a table and launch projects.

So we don't really see the benefit of the device, ”said Sophie Vénétitay, deputy general secretary of the SNES-FSU teacher union.

Doubts that academic directors of the National Education Services (DASEN) and academic inspectors have tried to remove, by encouraging establishments to get started. 

Faced with this lack of enthusiasm, the ambition of the education CNRs seems to have dropped a notch.

While they were to be open to staff, families, students, local elected officials, representatives of associations, "it often boiled down to meetings between teachers", notes Sophie Vénétitay.

“We are far from the Copernican revolution”

And the projects that have begun to emerge are not as innovative as one would have thought, according to Sophie Vénétitay: "According to the first feedback from the field, the consultations have led to projects for the revegetation of playgrounds or pedagogical support for students.

We are far from the will of Copernican revolution which was sold.

Very often, the ideas that have emerged stick to very concrete concerns, as Alexis Torchet also observes: "This can be the creation of language or math workshops, or bringing in a speech therapist within establishment to make life easier for students who must consult it.

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For Guislaine David, we are even witnessing a diversion of the CNRs, “because we are going to look for projects that the schools already had in the making to make them fit into the framework.

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Outstanding questions about funding

It also remains to be seen how the funds provided under the CNR will be allocated.

“We do not know the distribution of the envelope by academy.

And we know that the rectorate can very well reject a project by saying that it does not correspond to the political priorities of the moment, ”says Sophie Vénétitay. 

Another question that arises, according to Alexis Torchet: “The multi-annual renewal of the system.

Because if an establishment obtains funding one year, but it stops the next, it will be very disappointing,” he warns.

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  • Education

  • Emmanuel Macron

  • Government

  • Pap Ndiaye

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