It’s unheard of, point Release. ” Over the days, the list of National Education federations calling for a strike tomorrow Thursday has continued to grow. The wildfire even reached the heads of establishments and inspectors, known to usually stay away from this kind of social movement. Ignoring their disagreements, all the public federations thus responded, supported by nurses, several private unions and parents of students. (…) Submerged by the omicron wave, the educational community intends to voice its discontent, continues Liberation, faced with a feeble protocol in the form of a weather vane, a chaotic management of teacher absences, a crying lack of resources and an underlying contempt. “
Directors at their wit’s end
The newspaper interviewed three school heads in Marseille. They tell about their daily life in times of pandemic.
Example Mathias, director of an elementary school in a central-north district: “ yesterday Tuesday was my discharge day, so I was able to answer the phone to a lot of parents, he relates. It was also necessary to take care of those who were waiting for certificates to obtain free self-tests at the pharmacy. Except that we did not receive a standard document to provide them, so I am going to pin something. I only learned of the Prime Minister’s announcements after recording, I was not watching TV. Nothing satisfies us about that. We simplify the task? Antigenic or PCR, you still have to check the tests. And then many parents hesitate to carry out the self-tests, for fear of hurting the children. And will they do it right? We don’t really feel safe, concludes Mathias, these new rules will annoy teachers more than anything else. Finally, we will close the school. It wasn’t planned, but yesterday’s announcements were the last straw. “
” School principals are alone », Adds this head of establishment questioned by The voice of the North. “ Everything falls on us. (…) At the moment, it’s unmanageable. (…) I answer emails until 10 pm, I consult them from 5 am and I answer them from 7 am when I arrive at school. (…) What keeps me going is that I am retiring at the end of the year. I love my job, but I’m happy to leave. “
Untenable situation!
It is therefore ” mayhem in schools », Exclaims The Parisian. ” Until then, France had succeeded in being one of the countries in the world which had closed its schools the least (only ten weeks). But Omicron, by being less dangerous but much more contagious, shatters everything … Not serious enough to justify confining the school system (and economic activity). Not harmless enough to let the virus slip away. As a result, the ‘test, trace, isolate’ strategy no longer works. We went to “vaccinate and test rather than close”, according to the Prime Minister’s formula. In practice, the equation is complicated for teachers (…). The number of positive cases is such that the situation has become untenable in the establishments. Too much pressure, too many constraints, too much anxiety! “
Blank disowned even in his own camp
For his part, Jean-Michel Blanquer, the Minister of Education finds himself under fire from critics, even in his own camp… ” Jean-Michel Blanquer, a favorite whose star fades under the effect of Omicron “, Title as well The world which notes that “ the about-face of the executive on the sanitary protocols to be applied in the schools as well as an approximate communication weakened the position of the minister. “
” The most destabilizing for the Minister of National Education, highlighted Le Figaro, is to have suffered the disavowal or the correction of the two heads of the executive. (…) When a teacher gets annoyed with Emmanuel Macron, during an interview, to discover the new protocols in the press, the Head of State agrees. And when, in front of the spectacle of queues of students waiting in the cold in front of pharmacies to be tested, the government urgently reviews its protocol, it is Jean Castex who will present them at the 20 Hours of TF1. As if he no longer considered his Minister of Education sufficiently audible to respond to the incomprehension or the anger of the parents of the students. (…) The problem in this crisis, point again Le Figaro, is that it is impossible to distinguish between what is school and what is health. Having chosen to carry, even embody, the choice of the open school despite the Covid, Blanquer today finds himself accountable for these two aspects at the same time. “