JM Blanquer had promised it. He did it. Six Catholic establishments under contract with the State benefit from the new priority education announced on September 23 the Secretary General of Catholic Education, Philippe Delorme. This progress was expected since the start of the 2020 school year and it opens up a new field to Catholic education at the same time as it strengthens its legitimacy. Catholic teaching is keen to mark its singularity with regard to secularism. He opens other projects: social assistance for his students, their guidance in Parcoursup for example.
Entry into priority education thanks to the Elimas experiment
In September 2020, Philippe Delorme, secretary general of Catholic education, caused a sensation by announcing that JM Blanquer had given his agreement to the entry of Catholic education into priority education. The minister did not confirm this statement. But he did.
Six Catholic establishments under contract with the State, two Marseilles colleges, three others in Le Mans, Nantes and Roubaix and a vocational high school in Roubaix, are now part of priority education. They entered it thanks to the reform carried out by N Elimas through local support contracts (CLA). The particularity of these contracts is to address themselves to establishments which do not meet the social economic criteria of Rep and Rep +.
The establishments are under contract for educational experiments on oral expression, mastery of emotions, language or cultural openness. “The criteria used are the same as those for public establishments,” P Delorme told us.
“We welcome the development of priority education which henceforth takes into account the local contexts of establishments and not only those of weakened territories”, says P Delorme. “These contracts allocate additional resources to establishments”.
Over the year 2022, N Elimas affirmed, after several dithering, that the credits of CLA would be in addition to those of priority education. But these experiments serve the objective of its reform which is the abolition of the Reps and their replacement by the CLA. This would lead to the transfer of funds necessary for establishments which concentrate the poorest children towards establishments which do not have the same level of poverty and often do not have an academic handicap. “We can see that this logic which invokes the diversity of the territories by saying that it is necessary to take into account the rurality is a way of dissolving the social question”, explains JY Rochex in this article.
Masters of the private sector will have specific training in secularism
Philippe Delorme intervenes on another political point: secularism. The Catholic Church had criticized the separatism law, in particular the Conference of Bishops of France, pointing to the multiplication of controls and constraints. They feared attacks on the freedom of worship, association and education. Since the law has been passed and the National Education is launching a major training and poster campaign on secularism. Catholic education will not be left out but intends to defend its conception of secularism. “Secularism is not the absence of religions but what allows their harmonious coexistence”, explains P Delorme. “We want to live secularism fully but having something different to offer”. Also Catholic education refuses national education training “because we do not experience secularism in the same way”. Catholic education will develop its own training. It will be offered “to all our educational staff”.
Catholic education wants the same aid for its canteens
Another sticking point: aid to students in Catholic establishments with regard to catering. The SGEC regrets that most local communities do not subsidize student meals as they do in the public. This is also the case with the State which does not allow them to benefit from the “one-euro canteen” in rural areas. According to the SGEC, this harms the development of Catholic establishments because families turn to public establishments where they can benefit from this aid.
Parcoursup’s social openness policy criticized
The last point of friction is Parcoursup. “It is not normal that the stress of high school students towards the bac has been swept away by that generated by Parcoursup”, says P Delorme. “Deserving students are sometimes penalized”. What generates this anger is the rejection by IEPs of excellent private students. “When IEPs change their criteria along the way it generates disappointment.” The share of students coming from the private sector in IEP rose from 36 to 31%. As P Delorme says, “the recruitment of IEPs has made it possible to welcome young people from disadvantaged high schools and this has led to young people from more advantaged areas being less taken” … The SGEC asks that Parcoursup take more into account the opinions of the class councils.
A workforce that is maintained
Catholic education is doing well. It loses 367 students out of 2,045,223, in other words nothing. This slight decrease is in primary where there are 7102 students less “for demographic reasons”, explains P Delorme. In the second level there are 5,899 more students despite the fall in numbers in BTS and prepas (-2600). Agricultural education has seen a clear increase with 836 more students (+ 2%). More than ever Catholic education affirms its weight and its demands.
Francois Jarraud
At the start of the 2020 school year
–
