Minister of Education Addresses Student Refresher Courses Following President’s Statements

It is now a question of ensuring the presidential after-sales service, a delicate exercise to say the least. Gabriel Attal, the Minister of Education, was on the move this Friday, August 25 in a school in Torcy (Seine-et-Marne) to discover the success courses for students in difficulty. Sessions intended for children and teenagers in need of an upgrade and carried out during the holidays, in particular therefore at the end of August, from which one could deduce (lack of precise information) of Emmanuel Macron’s interview at Point, Wednesday, August 23, that he wanted to extend them.

The President has indeed mentioned a two-week early start for students in difficulty. Leaving educational teams and commentators with more questions than answers on what the measure would imply, while this type of upgrading has already existed for more than thirty years, in forms and names that have varied according to the governments.

Expected on the subject during his trip, Gabriel Attal hardly dispelled the fog. Except by carefully avoiding talking about generalizations and the obligation imposed on students identified as having difficulty. “The meaning of this project is to say that we are going to develop [ces stages de soutien]. The novelty is that we are going to invest massively to deploy them,” he was content to respond to the press, without further details.

The challenge of the canteen

The Minister nevertheless recognized that it would be necessary to look into the logistics, in particular concerning the canteen. Two mothers of students specially dispatched for the ministerial visit told him of their organizational difficulties, their children following lessons in small groups from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. before returning to school at 1 p.m. 30 for more physical and cultural activities. During the two midday hours, no school catering, for lack of staff to provide it. But the catering agents being hired by the communities and not by the ministry, it is hard to imagine the latter embarking on a project to revise their pace of work.

As for the teachers who will provide these courses, will they be paid more than at present, in order to encourage them to participate? Gabriel Attal, concerned throughout his visit to promote the work of teachers with students and their parents, retorts that all this should be discussed with the trade unions, their short-circuiting being inelegant – a way of showing that it learned lessons from the Jean-Michel Blanquer era, the former occupant of the rue de Grenelle having got into the habit of making his announcements in the press.

For the rest, Attal refers to his back-to-school press conference, which will take place on Monday morning, where he should notably discuss arrangements for the anticipated bac exams and specify the ministry’s position on the wearing of abayas at school. Not forgetting that Emmanuel Macron remains the big decision-maker, he who, not content to burn politeness to his minister in terms of back-to-school communication, now believes that education is his “reserved area”, in a very personal interpretation of the Constitution.