Gabriel Attal doesn’t want to give up. The Prime Minister maintained with AFP on Wednesday his wish to set up highly contested level groups in French and mathematics in middle school, assuring that they would be “the rule” in these subjects, and the entire class “l ‘exception”.
In an interview with AFP, the Prime Minister – who was Minister of Education six months before being called to Matignon in January – stressed that he would speak of “level groups” because it seems “to him” clearer for the French. And there will be “three groups according to the level of difficulty of the students, with one objective: that we can take stock of the level of the students, which will make it possible to change groups”.
A “certain flexibility”
After weeks of consultations, the Minister of Education Nicole Belloubet, who arrived at rue de Grenelle a month ago, announced last week a “certain flexibility” in the implementation next year in 6th and 5th grade of these groups, supposed to raise the level of students. She preferred to call them “need groups” and mentioned the possibility of “bringing the students together as a whole class” at certain times.
Words which had relieved the teaching unions, who saw it as a change in this reform, to which they are strongly opposed. But Gabriel Attal reaffirmed the next day that these groups would indeed be “level groups”.
“What does the name matter, as long as there is the measure,” Gabriel Attal declared to AFP on Wednesday, without specifying whether the expression “level group” would appear in the official texts which will be published on Friday to put put in place the “shock of knowledge” – the set of measures decided to raise the level of students.
“The rule is the group”
The head of government assured that there would be whole-class sessions, but added “that for at least three quarters of the year, students must follow their lessons in French and mathematics in the level groups “. “So the rule is the group, and the exception, very regulated, is the class,” he continued.
“It’s very annoying to see that Gabriel Attal remains firm on his decision to make the level group the rule,” reacted to AFP Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, the main secondary school union (colleges and high schools). According to her, the Prime Minister “remains disconnected from the reality of what is happening in class and he has not taken into account at all the rejection of teachers and parents on this subject.”
For Jérôme Fournier, national secretary of SE-Unsa, “it is urgent to wait for the publication of the official texts”. “To say that the class is the exception is relative flexibility” and “we persist in thinking that groups are harmful for students,” he told AFP.
In December, Gabriel Attal, then Minister of Education, announced the creation of level groups in 6th and 5th grade from the start of the 2024 school year, and from September 2025 for 4th and 3rd grade classes. Teachers’ and school heads’ unions point to a risk of “sorting” of students and note a lack of resources to put them in place. Since January, mobilizations have taken place against this reform.
Concerning the means, Gabriel Attal assured that “if we realize here or there, in such and such an academy, in such and such an establishment, that additional positions are necessary, we will continue to add resources”, but without specifying any amount.
“No discrepancy”
The Prime Minister also defended himself against any “difference” with the Minister of Education on this subject. The Prime Minister also assured that he does not want to regain control over education issues, while this week he is increasing the number of trips, speeches and meetings devoted to schools.
After a trip to Arras on Monday, where teacher Dominique Bernard was killed five months ago, he will go to a college in Chartres (Eure-et-Loir) on Thursday with the Minister of Education. He will host a video conference meeting with the heads of establishments (middle schools, high schools), particularly on level groups. “I said on the first day of my appointment to Matignon that I was taking the school’s cause with me,” he recalled. “I never lost the thread.”