Government priority, will education finally be able to regain its nobility? This is the heavy mission that awaits Nicole Belloubet, third minister to set up shop on Rue de Grenelle in six months and even fifth Minister of National Education in less than two years – after Jean-Michel Blanquer, Pap Ndiaye, Gabriel Attal and Amélie Oudéa-Castéra.

Nicole Belloubet hoped, Friday February 9, during the handover ceremony with Amélie Oudéa-Castéra – who is leaving the ministry after 28 days of controversy – the establishment “very quickly of a dialogue” with teachers . “I will focus on it from next week. You can count on my commitment,” she said.

The new minister knows that she is arriving in a minefield, within an institution plagued by doubt and which suffers from numerous ills. The teachers also went on strike, Thursday February 1 and Tuesday February 6, to express both their discomfort and their opposition to the application for the next school year of Gabriel Attal's reforms, in particular the implementation level groups in French and mathematics in 6th and 5th grade classes.

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Entitled "shock of knowledge", the former minister's plan announced in December aims to raise the level of students, whose disappointing results were once again highlighted, on December 5, by the international Pisa study. Dedicated to the education systems of OECD countries, it revealed after the Covid-19 crisis an “unprecedented decline” in the performance of students in all member countries, and in particular among the French.

Among the 38 OECD countries, France is ranked 22nd in maths, 24th in reading comprehension and 22nd in sciences. Results “among the lowest ever measured”, according to the OECD. In mathematics, between 2018, the date of the last Pisa study, and 2022, it experienced "a historic drop in student levels", highlighted Éric Charbonnier, education specialist at the OECD, in December.

Marked by a very strong weight of social origin in the success of students, France also remains "one of the OECD countries where the link between the socio-economic status of students and the performance they obtain in Pisa is the strongest,” indicated the OECD.

“Public schools are not far from collapse”

The reasons for this poor performance are multiple. The unions mainly highlight the lack of teachers. “The Pisa survey is a mirror of the results of the policies carried out in recent years,” Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, the main secondary education union (middle and high schools), told France 24. "However, to improve the level and reduce inequalities, we must act on several levers: firstly ensuring that there is a teacher in front of the students, but also working on the attractiveness of the teaching profession, on their training and on the learning conditions of the students. Because when we are in a class with reduced numbers, we can progress better,” judges the trade unionist.

In fact, nearly 8,865 teaching positions have been eliminated in public secondary education since 2017, according to Snes-FSU, and France has the busiest middle and high school classes in Europe. Added to these deletions are resignations. These have been constantly increasing for ten years: from 399 during the 2012-2013 school year, they jumped to 2,411 in 2020-2021, according to figures from the Ministry of National Education. Finally, National Education is finding it increasingly difficult to recruit. In 2023, of more than 23,800 open positions in public education, 3,163 have not been filled.

“Between the lack of teachers, the resignations, the loss of meaning, public schools are not far from collapse,” laments Sophie Vénétitay.

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One of the main reasons for these difficulties is the salaries of teachers, considered too low. There are therefore fewer candidates for competitive examinations, which leads to a drop in the level. Thus, the admission threshold continues to fall. For example, for the Mathematics Capes it went from 9.5/20 (for 4,000 candidates) in 2006 to 8/20 (for 2,000 candidates) in 2021, underlines Le Point. Same observation in the first level: the threshold for admission to the external competition for school teachers fell in 2021 to 8/20 in the Versailles academy and even to 6/20 in the Créteil academy, according to figures from the ministry.

Furthermore, the lack of teachers often means they are not replaced when they are absent. Two million hours of lessons were thus not provided between 2018 and 2019, according to a report from the Court of Auditors published in 2021.

Finally, the lack of autonomy of educational establishments has also been pointed out for several years, notably by Emmanuel Macron. The Pisa study proves him partly right. “The more autonomy schools have, the better the average results in mathematics; however, this relationship is more likely to hold true if educational authorities and establishments have certain quality assurance mechanisms,” underlines the OECD.

Criticism of “nonsense about the restoration of authority or the wearing of a blouse”

Will Gabriel Attal's "clash of knowledge" make it possible to resolve these many difficulties of the French school? Nicole Belloubet is now responsible for implementing her measures, a choice which surprises the Snes-FSU.

"She is someone who knows National Education because she was rector (of the academy of Limoges then of Toulouse between 1997 and 2005, Editor's note), but we really wonder which minister she will be. Will she be will she be able to bang her fist on the table like when she resigned or will she be on the same line as the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister on uniform and level groups?" asks Sophie Vénétitay.

At the head of the Toulouse academy in 2000, Nicole Belloubet resigned in 2005 with a bang, criticizing the lack of resources provided by the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin. And in an article published in 2016 in the magazine Après-demain, she criticized the "nonsense about the restoration of authority or the wearing of the blouse", orientations defended today by Emmanuel Macron and Gabriel Attal.

Also read: The school uniform experiment, a “band-aid” on real school problems

Friday morning, during the transfer of power, the minister took care to mention “the values ​​of respect and authority”. A way of showing that she endorsed this policy. But she also said she wanted to “do everything to put in place a system which contributes to reducing social inequalities, which refuses any social sorting and which does not exclude students through failure”. Words this time intended for those who fear a sorting between students that could result from level groups in French and mathematics in middle school in 6th and 5th grade.

"She is aware that she is arriving in an incandescent context. I note that she did not use the expression 'level groups' and that she spoke of the fight against inequalities. Now, she must takes action. Its first gesture cannot be to publish texts which are unanimously against them", insists the general secretary of Snes-FSU.

Sophie Vénétitay refers to the vote, Thursday evening, of the Superior Council of Education. Asked to comment on the text organizing the level groups, this consultative assembly rejected it with 67 votes against, one abstention and no votes for. If the executive and teachers agree on the observation of the malaise existing at school, the remedies to cure it are debated.

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