After amazement and incomprehension comes anger. This Tuesday, at the end of the afternoon, representatives of Parisian vocational schools threatened with closure gathered in front of the Suzanne-Valadon establishment in the 18th arrondissement. They answered the call of Anne-Claire Boux, deputy (EELV) to the mayor of Paris in charge of city policy.
” I am very angry. In the name of financial management, the region wants to close establishments on a human scale, with few personnel and focused on educational projects. Education is not for sale. It must not be profitable. It is a fury that will bring to the strengthening of inequalities. We will not let that happen ”, wants the chosen one. In a letter sent this Tuesday to Pap Ndiaye, Minister of National Education, Anne-Claire Boux warns against “the disastrous consequences” of these closures and asks him to cancel them.
It is therefore time to mobilize after the announcement, on 8 November, of the partial or total closure of 9 Parisian high schools by Valérie Pécresse, president (Libres) of the Ile-de-France region, and of the rectorate, due to a “historic decline in the number of high schools in Paris” and the degradation of these establishments.
Training transferred
Six vocational high schools (Brassaï in the 15th century, Armand-Carrel in the 19th century, the Charenton site of Théophile-Gautier in the 12th century, the Friant site of Lucas-de-Nehou in the 19th century, Suzanne-Valadon in the 18th century and Charles-de -Gaulle in the XX) and a general high school (Georges-Brassens in the XIX) will close their doors at the beginning of the 2023 academic year. And two more in 2024 (the Jacques-Monod vocational high school in the V and the François- Rabelais in the 18th century).
And if only the construction sites closed, while training was transferred to other high schools, «when the information was made official, we were amazed, confides a visual arts teacher. I don’t know where I will be transferred. The future of temporary teachers is uncertain. And we will lose students along the way. Most are fragile. Without the social bond that is created within the establishment and the neighborhood, they risk ending up on the streets. Sylvaine Baehrel, head of secondary education at the FCPE in Paris, shares this concern. “This measure precipitates the insecurity of students with precarious education,” he is alarmed.
“Next year we risk abandoning”
“It looks like we’ll have to go to the 16th or 12th century. If I have to wake up at 6 in the morning and arrive at 8 in the morning, I won’t last two months. And currently we are at most 18 per class and the teachers are close to us. Next year we risk abandoning our studies ”, annoys Julien, educated in first class “commerce”.
The Georges-Brassens general education grammar school in the 19th century is also in the crosshairs. Emmanuel, father of a teenager who follows a double course in this establishment after integrating the mastery of the Opéra-Comique, deplores the brutality of the announcement. “Parents are in shock. Our children should integrate Bergson into the 19th century. This school complex has 1,800 students. They will no longer have their teachers and are not sure if the acoustic conditions are met for music practice. »
Determined to lead the battle against the closure of the nine Parisian high schools, Anne Hidalgo’s assistant asked to be received with a delegation of parents, students, teachers and educational advisers by the Minister of National Education to start a consultation.
