“Macron’s model is that of private education” – Liberation

Sarkozy’s antiphon is assumed: if teachers want to earn more, they will have to work more. During the press conference presenting his main proposals for a possible second five-year term on Thursday, candidate Emmanuel Macron declared that there would be “several teacher compensation systems”, depending on the additional missions that they would accept to assume: replacement, in the second degree, of absent colleagues, work on extracurricular time, more individualized support… An involvement which would be, according to him, the key to a better performance of the French educational system. The sociologist in education and training sciences Françoise Lantheaume, professor emeritus at Lyon 2, returns to this old fantasy of the remuneration of teachers on merit.

Is the idea of ​​remunerating teachers according to their involvement in the school new?

No, it goes back to the 80s. It’s a sea serpent of all Liberal programs. It is very surprising to see speeches that come back and associate salary and success. It shows a profound misunderstanding of what teachers’ work is and, in general, work. All the works on the subject show that the commitment of the person is not indexed to the salary, even if it is a dimension of recognition.

The teachers complain that their salary is insufficient, rightly because it is a category A which is not paid at the level of a category A. When we compare to the private sector, it has nothing to do and that contributes to the lack of attractiveness of the profession. But what makes the meaning of their work is the success of the students. And what makes them unhappy is the feeling of being prevented from making them succeed. They say to themselves, “This is not only wrong, but it is also insulting.”

Why has this proposal, so dear to the Liberals, not been implemented so far?

There is perhaps a little bit of wisdom that comes to leaders once they are elected. Perhaps also the awareness of what is happening where this kind of new standard of public management is applied, which associates salary and result. In countries where it is applied [Etats-Unis et Royaume-Uni, ndlr]it doesn’t work, it doesn’t produce better results.

How does this proposal seem to you to be disconnected from the realities on the ground?

I don’t even understand the realism of the proposal. The problem comes from the confusion maintained by political and administrative leaders, but also, unfortunately, for a long time by the unions, between service time and working time. People confuse face-to-face time with students with actual teacher activity time. Professors often work more than 40 hours per weekthe surveys of the General Directorate of School Education [Dgesco] showed it. In this case, working more, what does that mean? Make them work 45 hours a week? This is a labor law issue.

In your opinion, which school does Emmanuel Macron want?

His discourse corresponds to a very classic liberal vision of fairly deregulated but authoritarianly managed schools. The Blanquer ministry has experienced an inflation of regulatory texts on the one hand, but on the other hand, we do not stop having this injunction to the autonomy of teachers. There is a contradiction that the system manages very badly. I think that Emmanuel Macron’s profound model, as strong for him as the Anglo-Saxon model, is that of private education, with establishments that recruit, a large fraction of precarious staff, a greater weight of local standards through a local establishment project, regulations that are mainly made by the market.

Electorally, what is the purpose of all this? Seduce parents and so much the worse for teachers?

[A la fin des années 90, le ministre de l’Education Claude] Allègre wanted to play parents against teachers, but it’s a generally losing strategy. If there are tensions and contradictions between parents and teachers, that’s where the student will be hurt the most, so you have to aim for everything that creates cooperation between families and the school. I am not a political scientist, but I think that it is above all a question for Emmanuel Macron of increasing the number of his clientele on the right, in competition with Madame Pécresse.

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