While the call for the mobilization of teachers and parents of students, for the movement of Thursday, January 13, seems to meet a strong echo in Seine-Saint-Denis, the socialist Stéphane Troussel, president of the departmental council, pleads for “a change of gear”. “The successive protocols, announced as they are, have become a symbol of the failure of the current political method”, he said. In his department, one of the youngest in France, 8% of classes are already closed due to Covid-19. Only half of 12-17 year olds are vaccinated.
In Seine-Saint-Denis, the strike promises to be particularly followed, according to the teachers’ unions. Do you confirm it?
I don’t have any figures yet, but obviously in the country, and particularly in Seine-Saint-Denis, we have reached an unprecedented level of tension from kindergarten to high school. Concern but also exasperation are alive there. I too am in favor of keeping schools “open” as long as possible, as the government advocates; in a department like mine, we have in mind that homeschooling does not replace school and is a source of inequality. But after two years of health crisis, the feeling that has spread – and which I share – is that the Ministry of Education does not provide itself with the means. It is urgent to recreate a framework of trust with all school stakeholders to get through this crisis.
What consequences does this crisis have on the school fabric, in your department?
The number of closed classes is increasing in our country as everywhere, despite a protocol supposed to avoid it: since the start of the school year in January, we have had 8% of classes closed in primary education, against 2% on the national average. In college, for months, teaching teams have been alerting us because their students have no math, French or history lessons. Seine-Saint-Denis reveals the difficulties that we face everywhere; a younger, more popular territory, where the need for school is greater, and where, unsurprisingly, all the problems are exacerbated by this crisis.
The lack of substitutes is one of them. A 2018 parliamentary report already said that in our country, due to problems of non-replacement, a student accumulated a year behind during his schooling. This data is still current.
The difficulties, and you say so, pre-exist the health crisis. But it is indeed the health protocol that mobilizes teachers, staff and parents this Thursday…
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