Pap Ndiaye and Emmanuel Macron are going to Marseille this Thursday, June 2 to visit one of the 59 “schools of the future” tested in the Marseille city, and which could be generalized from the start of the 2022 school year. This system notably allows directors to recruit them even their teachers.
Emmanuel Macron and Pap Ndiaye on the move to Marseille
[Mise à jour du 2 juin à 10h50]. The new Minister of National Education and Youth, Pap Ndiaye, travels this Thursday, June 2 to Marseille, alongside the President of the Republic. After his trip to Cherbourg to respond to the emergency crisis at the start of the week, Emmanuel Macron looks at education. “Health and school are two investments of the French nation in people (…) with a history of excellence” he said on Tuesday, saying he wanted “change method” and “simplify the system”. Also, when announcing his “Marseille en grand” plan on September 2, 2021, Emmanuel Macron had promised 400 million euros to renovate the schools of the Marseille city. Today he is visiting the Menpenti school, one of 59 “schools of the future” tested in Marseille, which could be generalized at the national level from the start of the school year in September 2022.
What is the school of the future?
These schools of the future, experimented in Marseille, bring more autonomy to primary schools, in particular by allowing headteachers to recruit their own teachers. How to answer the teacher shortage which worries the academies as the start of the new school year approaches. But concretely, according to Virginie Akliouat, spokesperson for Snuipp-FSU, a union of school teachers, “the test has not really started in the 59 schools“. she specifies to the Parisian.
Maths in the common trunk?
During this visit to Marseille, Emmanuel Macron could also address the issue of the reintegration of mathematics into the common core, a subject that had become optional since it is now included in the choice of student specialties. While the former Minister of Education had asked for the return of maths in the common core from September, the president should decide on this in the coming days or weeks. Set up at the next school year, or in 2023, a new “additional option” could be offered.
What challenges await Pap Ndiaye at National Education?
Social and school inequalities, teacher recruitment, back to school... Many topics await the new Minister of National Education and Youth. For Pap Ndiaye, the challenge of the post of Minister of Education is therefore daunting, as students and teachers have been turned upside down in recent years by the Covid-19 crisis as well as the baccalaureate reform, which deserves, from the start of the school year, new adaptations. Particularly with regard to the reintroduction of mathematics in the common core. “My first thoughts go to the world of teachers which has always been mine” assured the new Minister of National Education who will also have to tackle the increase in teachers’ salaries. During the debate between the two rounds, Emmanuel Macron had, in fact, announced that he wanted to raise the salaries of teachers so that there is “no more career start-ups under 2,000 euros” per month, ce which represented an increase “about 10%” for teachers at the start of their career. The president, then candidate, had also promised that this revaluation would reach up to 20% for “those who use the most innovative methods by allowing more freedom, in the field, to our teachers“The new Minister of National Education is therefore eagerly awaited on this issue, particularly by the unions.”The question of wages will have to come on the table very quickly (…) We are impatiently awaiting a meeting with the Minister, then a consultation, because it is urgent to clarify things “, explained Guislaine David, general secretary of Snuipp-FSU, the first primary school union according to The Telegram,
Who is Pap Ndiaye, the new Minister of National Education?
Pap Ndiaye was born in 1965 in Antony in the Hauts-de-Seine and grew up in the suburbs of Paris. Her father, Senegalese, is a renowned engineer in sub-Saharan Africa and her mother, French, from a family of farmers then became a professor of natural sciences in a college, raised her children alone. Pap Ndiaye is now the father of two children, whom he had with sociologist Jeanne Lazarus. The French historian specializes in the social history of the United States and minorities. Holder of a doctorate from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Pap Ndiaye was notably a lecturer, then professor at Sciences Po Paris, and finally general manager of the Palais de la Porte-Dorée. The new Minister of National Education and brother of writer Marie Ndiayeis also the one who led the Immigration History Museum.
Pap Ndiaye, already criticized by the far right
Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour immediately reacted to the appointment of the new Minister of National Education accusing Emmanuel Macron of wanting “deconstruct” the history of France. For the RN candidate, the arrival of Pap Ndiaye in the ministry is “the last stone in the deconstruction of our country, its values and its future” she believes on Twitter. She adds in front of the cameras that this appointment “defending indigenism, racialism at the head of national education, is a terrifying choice”. As for Jordan Bordela (RN), he qualifies him as “racialist and anti-cop activist“. On CNews, Eric Zemmour denounces the fact that Pap Ndiaye “has participated in meetings forbidden to whites, he is a real indigenous intellectual, a real woke”. Elisabeth Borne did not hesitate to immediately defend her new Minister of Education: “Pap Ndiaye is a very committed Republican, someone who believes in the values of the Republic and that is obviously what he will wear as Minister of National Education.“