The Minister of Education, who gave an interview to The Dispatch, speaks about violence at school and details his method. She also defends the new training course for teachers and ensures that she is considering an overhaul of the transfer system which is often an obstacle to recruitment.
It’s been a month almost to the day since you were appointed Minister of Education. The imprint of one of your short-lived predecessors is still very present. Is it easy to succeed Gabriel Attal?
The question is not posed like that. I accepted the proposal from the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister to exercise these functions because school, for me, is a love story. I have been working in the school system for years, either as a teacher or as an academy rector. I left the Toulouse academy in 2005 and after that I continued to be a teacher. It is therefore a love story for the students and for the teachers.
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How does your duo with the Prime Minister work?
I obviously bring my touch, my mark. On essential decisions it is quite normal that I work with the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic. Teacher training is a subject that we have all worked on together. Gabriel Attal is Prime Minister, and I am Minister of National Education and Youth.
Again on Saturday, during a meeting with the Regional Daily Press, Gabriel Attal discussed new avenues of work. Can you tell us more about compulsory boarding schools for problem adolescents? For what type of mistakes would they be sent there and what sanctions could be applied to parents who refuse?
We are absolutely convinced that boarding schools can play a major role in welcoming children for different reasons, either because they are far from an educational place or because they are young people who we think must be protected from their environment. Concerning the possibilities of sanctions, this remains to be worked on. But I start from the principle that parents must assume all their responsibilities in all aspects of their children’s lives.
Gabriel Attal also mentioned the creation of disciplinary councils in primary schools, are the children old enough to understand?
I say this very clearly: in primary education, no fact can remain unanswered and parents must be involved in the procedures leading to sanctioning behavior and repairing damage. It is a simple principle: punishment and reparation. This is also part of education, which fortunately is not reduced to that.
You mentioned another avenue of reform in order to calm the school atmosphere: the elimination of cell phones at school. When will this be effective?
I’m in the process of having it studied. I think our children need a digital break, to cut themselves off from this permanent addiction. The President of the Republic has launched a mission on the screens so I want to coordinate with him.
Emmanuel Macron wanted, last summer, to have a teacher in front of each student. Will this be the case at the start of the school year?
I hope (laughs). We are getting ready to make this happen. We do this by anticipating the recruitment of contractual staff. It’s less the positions that I miss than the physical people.
The Capes and aggregation competitions are taking place at the moment. There are fewer and fewer candidates. To fill positions, juries lower recruitment thresholds… Are our teachers still up to par?
Absolutely. All the work done at the time of recruitment is to verify the skills of our future teachers. On the other hand, as we really want to work on making the profession attractive, we are completely repeating initial training. On the training of teachers, it is a real revolution that the President of the Republic asked me to prepare.
The President of the Republic has, in fact, announced a change in training courses: a baccalaureate plus 3 instead of a master’s degree. This concerns school teachers but also secondary school teachers?
Of course. You will have young people who, for example, will have an English degree, will take the competitive exam at Bac plus 3 and then will enter the master’s degree under the same conditions as school teachers, that is to say in the first year with internships in supported practices then in the second year with internships in responsibility. These student civil servants will then work in pairs with experienced teachers. Obviously, during these two years, they will also deepen their disciplinary skills and they will be paid.
We know that one of the obstacles to recruitment is also the question of assignment. Are you thinking about this subject?
I am thinking about systems that could allow candidates to take the exam in the regions where they want to practice. But I do not want to make an announcement at this stage because such a change could have significant consequences on mutations. Let’s imagine a geo history teacher competition for the south of France, people who live in the North could no longer be transferred to the South because the positions would be blocked, so we have to find a system that allows us to respond to the problem without stiffen movements. This is a reflection that we are carrying out.
Do you understand the dispute regarding level groups?
Yes I understand it but I think that teachers’ fears can be alleviated. It’s about taking charge even better than what we currently do with 6th and 5th grade students in math and French by having them work in groups. These groups are not fixed. We will set up a whole class return system at certain times of the year, which cannot represent more than 25% of the time but which will allow groups to mix. There will obviously be no social sorting. It is the teachers who will decide which groups the students will go into, based in particular on assessments carried out as a whole class.
After a month of training, would you say that the French school is going well? Are there certain things that worry you?
I find the teachers truly committed to the education of their students, because deep down they think, like me, that school changes lives.
2024-04-14 08:12:45
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