After the teachers on Wednesday, nearly 13 million students and apprentices will return to school this Thursday, September 1. A delicate return for Pap Ndiaye, because the new Minister of National Education must face a shortage of teachers and galloping inflation which weighs on the portfolio of families and schools.
After the hot summerplace the heat stroke of the new school year: prices of school supplies which blaze, teachers recruited urgently and without experience to compensate for the shortage of teachers, crisis of vocations, lack of salary recognition… The lights are already red and Pap Ndiaye is not there, according to rebellious MP Paul Vannier:
” We knew there would be a shortage of teachers, 4,000 in this case. We knew inflation would hit household budgets hard. And faced with this, it is clear that Pap Ndiaye took a real vacation. He waited until the very last days to do more communication than concrete action. »
In an unprecedented context of teacher shortages, the minister wants to reassure. He promises that there will be a teacher in front of each class. However, achieving this objective requires recruitment of contractors, non-tenured teachers and, for some, trained in four days. They represent between 8 and 10% of middle and high school teachers.
I wish a good return to school to the 1.160 million teachers and staff of National Education. I know I can count on you to help your students succeed, and you can count on me.
— Pap Ndiaye (@PapNdiaye) August 31, 2022
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“We’ve come so far”
The criticisms of Pap Ndiaye are unfair according to Renaissance MP Céline Calvez, who defends the Minister of Education and especially the measures launched in recent months: “ Faced with inflation, we have increased the back-to-school allowance and we have unfrozen the index point, which means that we can have up to 4% increase in teachers’ salaries. We are starting from so far that, inevitably, we have to do a lot. But we are even more eager to find solutions. »
To improve the attractiveness of the profession, Pap Ndiaye promises 2,000 euros net per month for new teachers, not before the start of the 2023 school year, however. But the salary increase will not be enough. It is also necessary to improve the working conditions of the educational community which felt despised by its predecessor, Jean-Michel Blanquer, for five years.
Another back-to-school project, after two years of health crisis: the level of students, which is estimated to be too low for one in four students in third grade. A great reflection will be carried out on the college.
The task is immense, recognized Emmanuel Macron last week, in front of the rectors of the academy. The Head of State wants to put education at the heart of his new mandate, after a first five-year term ended in the general hostility of the teaching staff.
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