School for all?

In September 2023, the press reported the “good” ranking of certain major French business schools internationally, testifying to an educational elite which would achieve the best education courses, making France a “champion” country…

But do all students really have access to public school at the start of the 2023 school year?

In her press release of August 31, 2023, the Defender of Rights warns of the situation of many of our students for whom this return to school will once again be an obstacle course!

• Alert on high school students without assignment (18,000 at the previous school year!)

• Alert on children in very precarious situations and without access to school (traveling families, children housed in social hotels, children without proof of address who are refused entry to school… )

• Alert on foreign minor students awaiting schooling. The report of the audit committee indicated in March 2023 that for 50% of them, the waiting times are longer than 6 months to have access to an educational establishment!

• Alert on out-of-school overseas students: more than 15,000 in Mayotte alone according to the Defender of Rights. With a worrying situation also in Guyana and the Antilles!

Focus on students with disabilities

Since the start of the school year, the Ministry of National Education has prided itself on the implementation of unprecedented means for the education of these students (source education.gouv.fr): 436,000 students with disabilities in school, 3.6% of students students with disabilities, 132,000 AESH staff and the creation of 6,500 additional positions, 164,000 inclusive course booklets, the opening of 37 autism nursery education units (UEMA), 44 autism elementary education units (UEEA) and 29 self-regulation devices (DAR), a new mission proposed to teachers as part of the Teachers’ Pact: support for the care of students with special needs in primary and secondary education, the creation of 25 resource professor positions for neurodevelopmental disorders (NDT) and the implementation of the measures of the 2023 National Disability Conference.

For SUD education, the ministry’s announcement effects hide the realities on the ground of colleagues, students and their families for whom inclusion and the right to schooling remain a daily struggle.

By the Defender of Rights’ own admission, the means are not adequate for the implementation of a truly inclusive school:

“The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child also expressly asked France last June to take all measures to significantly improve the educational inclusion of children with disabilities.”

“The Defender of Rights notes that schools, facing an often very high number of students per class, and in great demand for the implementation of inclusive schooling, are not allocated the necessary means to enable inclusion that respects the rights and best interests of the children concerned. It thus reiterates its recommendations and urgently calls on public authorities to mobilize the essential means to guarantee inclusive schools.”

Since the start of the school year, the findings reported by the teaching teams are clear: lack of AESH staff, lack of places in existing systems (schools, medico-social, etc.), difficulties/refusal of access to extracurricular time (canteen , leisure centers, etc.), lack of training for staff (teachers and non-teachers), difficulties in setting up educational arrangements in already overcrowded classes, lack of suitable equipment, inaccessibility of certain school buildings …
On the family side, hundreds of testimonies have been published in the press, revealing a considerable number of students with no or partial schooling, forcing them to stay at home, which increases the parental burden, whether Most of us know how to rest on the shoulders of women.

SUD education has been denouncing this situation for years. The implementation of the law for all students in our territories remains an essential struggle to wage within our education system.
We repeat it again: without resources, inclusive school is just a slogan!

SUD education calls on you to write to the administration with a copy of the SUD education union in your department to report the lack or absence of support for students in your schools and establishments or any difficulty that prevents access to school for all students.

SUD education calls on staff to build mobilizations to gain real access to education for all students.

SUD education claims:

• Means to welcome and meet the needs of all students regardless of their academic, social, administrative situation, their origin or their disability… throughout the territory,
• The massive creation of AESH, RASED, medico-social staff, teachers, CPE and School Life staff and interpreters positions,
• The creation of a real status of the Public Service of specialized school educator for AESH,
• The drop in numbers per class,
• Real initial and continuing training in educational inclusion adapted to the needs of students and staff with co-training and consultation times for all staff,
• Adaptation of buildings and school equipment.
  Weekly consultation time institutionalized and dedicated to the inclusion of students with special needs to be welcomed.