Education: teacher shortage continues to impact children's learning

Louise Sallé, edited by Loane Nader 14:08 p.m., March 27, 2023

The shortage of teachers continues to impact schoolchildren, middle and high school students, who lose millions of hours of classes each year where the deficiency is not alleviated. Substitutes are lacking in the country's academies, such as that of Ivry-sur-Seine where Ilham, mother of a schoolgirl, notes that the latter has not had French lessons since October.

"It's getting worse and worse. She has also been without Spanish for three months. History-geo, it's been two months, so I can not compensate for all these courses and I am not a teacher either, "laments the mother, before adding, "I also have a job on the side. I feel like we're tinkering, and then it's up to you to make do." To meet this challenge, the ministry wants teachers to work overtime to replace their colleagues in another subject.

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150 million hours of courses not replaced

A solution far from solving the problem, according to Grégoire Ensel, president of the federation of parents of students. "That the hours of math lessons are replaced by French, it does not advance the math program. We largely prefer the creation of permanent positions", he acknowledges, drawing up an alarming observation, "we have each year a little more than 400,000 hours spontaneously declared by parents of students on replacement problems. It is a totally national phenomenon and we are far from the goal since every year, from the minister's own mouth, there are 150 million hours of classes that are not replaced."

For these families, there is therefore only one solution, to ensure a much larger pool of available replacements.