Education: is the tension around job cuts unprecedented? – France

Why are so many job cuts announced in Brittany?

It is not specific to Brittany. We are in a perfectly balanced logic on the territory. What we are currently observing is in fact the cumulative effect of job cuts since the coming to power of Emmanuel Macron. There is always a time lag between when decisions are made and when concrete repercussions become visible.

What is happening now, is it new?

No. There have already been some very tense moments, when Nicolas Sarkozy was president, with a total of 60,000 job cuts between 2008 and 2012.

So the problem comes from afar?

For years, we have heard a discourse advocating quality and explaining that it is not by investing more money that we will succeed. As a result, since 1994, the share of GDP devoted to Education has fallen by one point. It is now at 7%, much less than what is spent on health, for example. However, a modern society is a society which invests in training and research. China, which has come a long way, is outperforming us in many areas. We are losing ground and France’s place in the concert of nations is no longer guaranteed.

What should be, in your opinion, the share of GDP devoted to Education?

It would not be unreasonable to go back to the situation of the 90s. Knowing that the stakes are even higher than at that time. And we have to invest at all levels. There is no point in allowing a student to start his education in a class of 12 students if he ends up in college in a class of 30.

Secondary school teachers often feel that they are the ones who are required the most. Is it true ?

I do not think that we should oppose the degrees. There was a very strong gap between first degree (nursery and primary) and second degree (middle and high schools) and it was not abnormal to reduce it. The only concern is that it was done with constant means. Result, to give a little in the first degree, we removed a lot in the second degree. And we hit the nail on the head so hard that we are reaching a breaking point.

Despite this rebalancing, anxiety is also strong in the first degree. How to explain it?

The first degree is far from being a wonderland. And since there is no oil in the cogs, any choice becomes problematic. The implementation of the duplication of classes of CP and CE1 in priority education networks was done, again, without additional budget. Inclusion is also absorbing more and more resources. However, there is a difference: the first degree, overall, is losing students. While the second degree wins. We are cutting jobs there as a demographic wave rises. The shock is still more severe.

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