Challenges and Obstacles in Achieving the Goal of a Teacher in Every Classroom

The President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed on July 24 that there would be “a teacher in front of each class at the start of the school year. We are putting in place a system that will make it possible to no longer lose teaching hours, first by putting the continuing education modules out of the time spent in front of the students, and then by having a more efficient replacement system.”.

These are strong announcements, but the past tends to show that “put in place for the start of the school year a system that will make it possible to no longer lose teaching hours” is more of a utopia than a truly achievable goal, even if there is indeed room for improvement as we are far from it.

Differences between first and second degree

In secondary education, and until the end of the 1950s, the replacement of teachers absent for a short period essentially involved welcoming pupils in « permanence », but a permanence where it was possible that they were not only supervised but also supervised by the then existing bodies of “masters of studies” or “master tutors”. These bodies of educators did not survive the demographic wave that followed the Liberation and the massification of secondary education.

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In primary education, the device is historically derived from the law of May 8, 1951. The memorandum of March 25, 1982 specifies the need to reserve the replacement incumbents of the ZIL (local intervention zones) for short-term replacements (ordinary sick leave, internships, absences, etc.), and those of the brigade (level departmental) for long replacements (long sick leave, maternity leave, etc.). According to the DEPP, for the year 2019-2020, more than 8% of teachers are substitute teachers in primary education against 2.7% in secondary education.

Teacher absences from students are less penalizing in primary education than in secondary education, because the substitute teachers are, like the teachers in the schools they replace, versatile, which facilitates their assignment. The rate of substitution in front of students rose to 80% during the 2017-2018 school year. While waiting for a replacement (or in the absence of a replacement sometimes), the director distributes the pupils affected by the absence between several classes.

We are therefore still a long way from the objective set by the President of the Republic, despite the staff resources implemented in primary education and even if many observers consider that the first level is a ” good student “ in the matter, in comparison with the second degree.

In college and high school, the replacement rate certainly reaches 96%, but only for “long absences” (greater than 15 days). Because short absences represent 2.5 million hours, and less than a fifth is replaced. Slightly downgraded figures compared to 2017, the date of a previous report of the Court of Auditors on the subject, with similar findings.

Steps taken by parents of students

A major change, however: families accept this situation less and less, no doubt alerted by the health crisis which has highlighted certain difficulties of the school in ensuring the ” educational continuity “. They “no longer hesitate to engage the responsibility of the State before the courts for lack of continuity of the public service of Education”is it underlined in the December 2021 report of the Court of Auditors.

The FCPE – the main federation of parents of public school pupils – had already encouraged parents of pupils to fill in the hours of lessons lost on a dedicated site indicating the name of the school, the discipline, the level school and the start date of the absence. With a success of effective registrations far from being negligible.

In addition, at the start of the 2022 school year, 170 parents of students joined the #Onveutdesprofs collective launched the previous June just after a year marked by confinements and health protocols: “the objective is to condemn the State” due to“repeated absences of unreplaced teachers, which cause harm to students”. And at the end of 2022, 127 first requests for compensation from the rectorates were filed, and more than 1,500 files were being processed.

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These parents and their lawyers believe they can rely on legal precedents. Thus, in 1988, the Council of State condemned the State to pay 1000 francs to the parents of a schoolboy whose teacher had been absent for seven hours: “The mission of general interest of education imposes on the Minister of National Education the legal obligation to ensure the teaching of all compulsory subjects. The breach of this legal obligation constitutes a fault likely to engage the responsibility of the State.the judges said.

Teacher pact and administrative matters

A decree published on August 8, 2023 establishes new rules concerning absences of less than 15 days in secondary education, the indisputable black spot of replacements for absent teachers.

From September of this year, high school principals and middle school principals must develop, with their teaching teams, a “annual plan aimed at effectively ensuring the hours provided for in the pupils’ timetable” By resorting to “priority” teachers who have signed a « pact ». These professors who are committed to this will be mobilized eighteen hours a year and on fixed time slots of at least one hour a week during which they cannot refuse to intervene (whether or not they are from the same discipline whether the teacher is absent or whether or not they have the class in question).

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We have to compare with the previous decree of August 26, 2005 according to which, for short-term replacements fixed at a maximum of two weeks, the heads of establishments were called upon to seek “in priority the agreement of qualified teachers” and, failing agreement, to designate the personnel responsible for providing replacements for absent teachers.

But according to the report of the General Inspectorate of the administration of National Education of June 2011 this decree had “a very reduced application; it was in fact badly perceived by many teachers and by trade unions; the principals did not want to make this subject a point of contention. The protocols were certainly established almost everywhere during the year 2005-2006 under pressure from the rectors, but in many cases they were only made up of declarations of good intentions”.

Moreover, in their conclusion, the IGAs point to an origin of the difficulties which does not seem to have to be easily reduced, even if the injunction was reiterated recently by the Head of State himself: “it has been observed that, despite previous reports and recommendations, the administration itself contributes to increasing replacement problems, in particular by setting up training courses coinciding with the traditional peaks in absences observed during the school year , by organizing pedagogical days without taking into account the schedules of the establishments or by summoning juries without anticipating the replacement needs that these summons give rise to. »

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One can finally doubt the possibility of arriving straight away to put “a teacher in front of each class”. Especially since what is currently planned by the ministry is already set back (despite the inevitable problems that this will pose). It is indeed specified that short replacements will be “primarily provided in the form of teaching hours”but that in order to“effectively ensure the hours provided for in the timetable” the ministerial text introduces the possibility of organizing “pedagogical sequences (…) using digital tools” and to use educational assistants, who are school staff, to supervise them.

Claude Lelievre is a teacher-researcher in the history of education, honorary professor at Paris-Descartes, Paris Cité University