Shortage of staff in nurseries: the government wants to recruit without training

Louise Sallé, edited by Solène Leroux 10:01 a.m., August 17, 2022

This is one of the headaches of the new school year: finding a place in a crèche.

This is often a real challenge for parents.

According to the Family Allowance Fund, almost half of the structures are understaffed.

To overcome this shortage, the government has just relaxed the recruitment rules.

From August 31, nurseries will be able to hire less qualified employees, and even without a diploma.

This will remain an exception, the decree specifies, but it still worries parents and professionals, like those whom Europe 1 met in a Parisian nursery.

"Have you finished?" Selim asks his little blond head.

"Let's go," he said as he dropped off his three-year-old daughter at daycare this morning.

"It's super worrying. We're going to entrust our children to people who aren't necessarily suitable," he said at the microphone of Europe 1. "It's dramatic, it's a reflection of society, it's is the race to the bottom. We hope that in the lot, there will be some who will be able to hold their own despite the lack of knowledge."

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“We are not being paid properly”

Yasmina goes to work.

She has been a childcare assistant for seven years and does not understand that unqualified staff can practice.

"We do not entrust a business to someone who does not have the skills, so we do not entrust a child who has specific needs to a person who is not able to take care of the child", she believes.

"It's true that you also learn on the job, but it's better to be trained in school to know the protocols, to know what to do in the event of choking, etc. If you finds herself alone, for example, and there is no graduate, how does the person do it?

According to her, the "lack of staff" is obvious, "but we just have to be paid correctly because the work is not valued": "We are not paid correctly, so today's young people no longer want do this work."

Yasmina is paid 2,000 euros gross per month.

120 hours of integration for new recruits

For Leonardo, on the other hand, father of an 18-month-old baby, additional employees, even without a diploma, are welcome.

"In areas in tension, it can provide relief. I don't know if there are other solutions," he smiles.

For a crèche to recruit without qualifications, it will have to prove that it has searched in vain for qualified personnel for three weeks.

The crèche must also introduce a 120-hour integration course for the new recruit.

10,000 professionals missing today

This decree is welcomed by the French Federation of crèche companies, even if for Elsa Hervy, the general delegate, this will not solve the problem.

“We are on a decree which better frames a possibility which already existed and which had strongly different criteria according to the departments. This national framework will absolutely not solve the shortage of early childhood professionals”, she assures. 

"We need today, just to operate the existing crèches, 10,000 new professionals. Tomorrow, with retirements, at least 20,000 more. And if the commitments of the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister to build 200,000 crèche places by 2027 want to be met, in all we need to train 100,000 new early childhood professionals.