The Metropolis of Rouen finances private higher education and attracts the wrath of the unions
By Margot Nicodeme
Published on
In all, it is about fifteen “unions and associations attached to public schools and secularism” who say they are “stunned” by the assignment of public funds to private projects. Monday, March 21, 2022, at Council of the Rouen Normandy Metropoliswere voted, not without difficulty, subsidies of up to 55 million euros intended for Higher Education“an unprecedented participation”, according to Mélanie Boulanger, vice-president.
In this deliberation, two specific points raise eyebrows, to name a few, the Committee for Secular Reflection and Action (Creal 76), the Union of Departmental Delegates of National Education (DDEN 76) or the CGT Educ action: the fundingup to 5.5 million euros, from future campus of the Catholic Institute of Paris (ICP) Espace du Moineau in Rouen, and the burial of the veterinary school project in Mont-Saint-Aignan, supported by the UniLaSalle Polytechnic Institute.
Confessional structures
The opponents of these projects had gathered in front of the headquarters of the Metropolis, hangar 108, shortly before the start of the council, at the end of the afternoon. Friday, March 18, during a press conference, they had detailed their problematic nature. First, the denominational aspect of the future establishments, the UniLaSalle network being “under the dual supervision of the Brothers of the Christian Schools and the Catholic Institute of Paris”, and the location of the Espace du Moineau, for the future ICP, belonging to the diocese of Rouen:
Funding works in a diocesan property is with the notion of separation of Church and State from 1905. There are a number of private establishments in the adversarial metropolis, but they are non-denominational.
Also, “teachers in private higher education are not paid by the State”, so there is “no obligation” for communities to subsidize these structures. And the Metropolis, through the voice of Mélanie Boulanger, to retort that it “participates in the financing, and not in the operation” of the establishments. President Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, he put forward the fact that “there is no religious obligation, neither for teachers, nor for students, nor for administrative staff”.
What there is to knowUpdated 10h53 ago
Note that elected members of the community council also expressed their disagreement, Monday, March 21, with nearly thirty who did not take part in the vote (and one vote against). The majority of two regretted that President Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol had not been dissociated, through several deliberations, the subsidies to public establishments, which they supported, and those of private schools.
Competition in training?
But trade unionists see it above all as the abandonment of public universities, where “the needs for premises, teachers, housing are extremely strong”. The library on the Mont-Saint-Aignan campus, “in a pitiful state”, is cited as an example when a documentation center worthy of the name has been promised instead, for years now. Are also fearful of possible competition in the lessons offered in the same territory, which the President of the Metropolis finally sweeps away. “The construction of the educational program will be done with the deans of the faculties. There was a meeting with Joël Alexandre [le président de l’Université Rouen Normandie, NDLR]. »
Mélanie Boulanger evokes the rest of the sum allocated to higher education, of which some 25.7 million will be used for real estate transactions, within the framework of the State-region plan contract (CPER). The future documentation center of Mont-Saint-Aignan, mentioned earlier, will be integrated with this money, assures the elected official. The CPER also includes rehabilitation interventions, estimated at 8.5 million euros, and new projects (8.5 million euros), such as the future faculty of dentistry. Finally, excluding CPER, “subsequent operations”, in which the ICP will be included, will be financed for 15.5 million euros.
Regarding the veterinary school, the unions and associations recalled that the veterinarians themselves were opposed to the opening of this first private establishment in France, and instead wanted more resources to be granted to the six known public schools. . On this point, Mélanie Boulanger assumes her “principles of reality”:
Veterinary schools, we are deprived of them. Faced with this, do we let Belgium train French veterinarians? It does not compete with anyone, and responds to a need.
Finally, and this is one of the last areas of concern among opponents, with registration fees ranging from “3,000 to 7,000 euros”, student debt is also feared. “And that can create private monopolies… which will have been publicly funded. »
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