Education: the Unsa teachers’ union organizes its congress in Toulouse to face “the challenges of the school of tomorrow”
The Unsa teachers’ union is organizing its national congress in Toulouse this week. The opportunity to renew his office, but above all to make proposals in the face of “multiple crises that the school is going through”. Interview with the general secretary of the union, Stéphane Crochet.
The UNSA teachers’ union is meeting its national congress this week in Toulouse, what is the objective of these four days?
The congress is an important moment in the life of the union, we are going to renew the bodies and above all update the union project with new proposals for the school, ranging from kindergarten to high school. Because of the Covid, we haven’t been able to meet lately, so this will be a privileged moment to take stock of the past few years when the school, like society, has experienced severe crises. Whether in the democratic, environmental or social field, upheavals have taken place and we are keen to analyze them in order to make proposals to meet the challenges of the school of tomorrow.
What are these challenges?
In the years to come, the school will face three major challenges. On the one hand, the attractiveness of our professions. We find it increasingly difficult to recruit new colleagues, we think that if our leaders do nothing, we experience the same difficulties as those experienced in the field of health. However, attractiveness does not only depend on questions of remuneration, there are also issues of working conditions and satisfaction.
Then, we want to recall our support for the inclusive school policy, we wish its success. But it is not enough to brandish it, it is necessary to take into account the difficulties which the pupils and the teams face to put it in place.
Finally, the last challenge is that of social diversity at school. Today, our students from different social backgrounds no longer live together at school. Our country suffers from a deficit of social diversity which is also illustrated at school. On this subject, we are very happy that the congress is taking place in Toulouse since the city is an example in terms of social diversity at college level.
Do you believe that these challenges are taken into account by the presidential candidates?
I regret that the campaign did not really take place in the end. For many months, she focused on refrains of cultural threats and the disintegration of society.
As Secretary General, I express our anger at the way Emmanuel Macron has completely silenced all the crises we have gone through, especially after the assassination of Samuel Paty and the health crisis. He returns to simple recipes promising teachers to upgrade them if they work more… I would add that Minister Blanquer’s management method was a crisis in itself for teachers.