Published on Sep 13, 2023 at 6:43 p.m.Updated September 13, 2023 at 6:50 p.m.
The figures are “quite staggering”, “we didn’t expect that”, said Bruno Bobkiewicz, head of the main union of school heads, SNPDEN-Unsa, on Wednesday, speaking of the new teachers’ pact. This set of new missions offered to volunteer teachers is being implemented at the start of the school year.
According to a survey carried out by this union among 2,750 principals and principals, in 30% of establishments, no pact has been signed. In 54% of middle and high schools, less than 10% of pacts were made. Conversely, in just over 2% of establishments, 100% pacts were concluded. The new system thus highlights the differences between establishments.
“A poorly born device”
“There is a collective allergy to the pact,” believes Bruno Bobkiewicz. The system was ill-conceived, poorly named, and communication was very poor with a confusion that was made between the revaluation and this system which is not one. » The new Minister of National Education has understood this well. The pact “is not a salary increase measure » , insisted Gabriel Attal during his back-to-school conference at the end of August. A change of discourse considered too late, given the very lively protest.
In detail, the pact corresponds to three “bricks” in the general and technological path, each worth 1,250 euros gross, or up to 3,750 euros gross increase per year if a teacher takes three – replacement of short term (18 hours), “homework done” system (24 hours) or discovery of professions (24 hours), for example.
The average absorption of these bricks is, according to the survey, 23% – which does not mean that 23% of teachers signed the pact. These first results are far from those on which the executive was counting – which was banking on 30% of teachers signing.
Optional missions
Behind this pact, the priority for the executive is short-term replacements. “Parents will see the systematic replacement of absent teachers,” Emmanuel Macron promised last April. He hasn’t stopped repeating it since. In this new school year, moreover, certain academies are “putting pressure” so that teachers who accept the pact first take the brick dedicated to replacement. They sometimes make it an imperative, when nothing imposes it in the texts, warns the SNPDEN.
The executive wants to avoid gaps in students’ timetables, and ensure that an absent French teacher is replaced at short notice by a mathematics teacher, and vice versa.
For the executive as well as for school heads, the equation is very delicate: how to explain to parents that homework done in 6e – obligatory for everyone at the start of the school year – or is the promised replacement of a teacher absent overnight only valid if the establishment has volunteer teachers to do it? “We cannot have a compulsory system that relies on optional levers coexist,” points out Cédric Carraro, principal (SNPDEN) in a vocational high school. “There are plenty of parents who are not fooled,” says Bruno Bobkiewicz. We should not tell stories to the general public. »
“The reality of everyday life”
In the teachers’ rooms, discussions about the pact fuel tensions. “There are individual positions which are not the same as collective positions,” explains Laurence Colin, principal (SNPDEN) of a general and technological high school. Teachers are faced with the reality of everyday life. They all go shopping and they all put gas in their cars. All opinions are heard, some must not impose their opinion on others at all costs. »
Will this encourage teachers to sign the pact in the coming months? “For the moment, we are united, the entire establishment has refused the pact,” confides a teacher. We’ll see after… “
For the government, some positive signs can be seen in the survey among school teachers who agree to provide hours of support and in-depth study at college – 62% of college principals will welcome them. In vocational high schools, the results are also better for teachers of professional subjects who, in three six-hour workshop courses, manage to achieve the objective of the required 18 annual replacement hours.