Teacher competition: unfilled positions in primary school, deplores union

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: JC MILHET / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 17:52 p.m., May 13, 2023

Nearly a thousand teaching positions will not be filled at the start of the primary school year in the academies of Créteil, Versailles and Guyana, laments the teacher union Snuipp-FSU Saturday, the day after the publication of the results of eligibility for the competitions. Figures compiled by the first primary school union, which AFP was able to consult, show that 966 positions will not be filled at the end of the CRPE competition (to become a school teacher) in these three academies.

In the academy of Créteil, 737 eligible candidates for 1,166 positions

For the primary, 11,371 candidates are eligible for 8,000 positions throughout the France, according to data published Saturday, only the department of Mayotte is still waiting for results. "The ratio of eligible to the number of positions to be filled is very low (editor's note: 1.42 on average) which means that there will not be enough people on the complementary lists in several academies," said Guislaine David, general secretary of Snuipp-FSU, the first primary school union, interviewed by AFP. In some academies, where the number of eligible is lower than the number of positions, "we already know that there will be problems at the beginning of the school year," she adds. On Saturday, the Ministry of Education did not respond to AFP's requests for comment.

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In the Créteil academy, for example, only 737 candidates are eligible for 1,166 positions. After a historic crisis at the start of the 2023 school year, the rectorate of Créteil announced on Friday the recruitment of 500 new contract teachers from June. Contacted by AFP on Saturday, he did not wish to comment on the results of eligibility for the competitions, waiting for "the end of all competitions" to express himself on this subject.

4,000 positions had not been filled in 2022

Last year, for both primary and secondary schools, more than 4,000 positions were not filled in teacher recruitment competitions, a historically low rate. This had led the Ministry of Education to use an increased number of contract workers, who had often received only a few days of training at the end of August before the start of the school year. "In 2022, says Guislaine David, there was a delay in the passage of the CRPE in Master 2 (editor's note: instead of Master 1) which could explain this record, but there the pool of students has been replenished and yet the number of candidates does not rise".

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"The shock of attractiveness wanted by the ministry has not taken place," she notes, denouncing degraded working conditions and inequalities in living conditions according to the academies, which causes "a disaffection for this worrying profession for the long term". According to the AEF, a news agency specializing in education, the Capes, the competition for secondary school teachers, is also affected to a lesser extent, with, according to its calculations, 191 positions not filled at the end of the eligibility tests at the national level, in German and classics.