the cry of alarm near Toulouse of parents of students two days away from the French baccalaureate
Two days before the French baccalaureate test, the parents of students in a first class at the Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Blagnac are sounding the alarm. According to them, their children are not sufficiently prepared for this ordeal. In question ? the absence of a tenured teacher, replaced by contract teachers deemed to be failing.
“We feel a strong sense of injustice because our children do not parent with the same opportunities as other students.” This parent does not hide his anger. The son of this Blagnacais, is in first general class at the Lycée Saint-Exupéry de Blagnac. This public establishment welcomes 1,800 pupils and students. Pupils are divided between the general, technological and professional baccalaureate streams.
In two days, he passes the written test of the French baccalaureate, the writing is scheduled for him in two weeks. Or the schooling of this 17-year-old student and his classmates has been seriously disrupted this year. “Last September, we were told that there was no permanent French teacher and that we asked for contract workers” explains the student’s parent. “We had a first substitute teacher, but she only stayed 6 weeks. Then we had another contract teacher, but it was very difficult” remember this dad.
This is what he says in a letter, which he translated to the editorial staff of France 3 Occitanie: “Very quickly, the problems started, the lessons were chaotic, without continuity, without clear explanation, the work of studying the texts only started late, which means that the students in my son’s class will not have any all and for all studied only 9 texts over the year, including 1 in 2 hours, out of the 16 planned for the oral examination of the French baccalaureate. only text comments, thus forgetting a whole part of the program, including certain literary genres. “
Very quickly, the parents of students alerted the principal of the Saint-Exupéry high school. But according to the parent, nothing has been done. “We are told, it’s him or you don’t have anyone to provide French lessons for this first class”. As for the proposal at the beginning of the year to put a tenured teacher in the first and a contractual one for the second, it was refused by the management of the establishment.
A student mother is also very worried. “My son is very worried about the grades. It’s really not a way to work, with contract teachers who are not yet trained. I blame the establishment, it’s not going well” she explains.
A situation that does not surprise the teachers’ unions. Pierre Priouret is academic secretary of the SNES – FSU (National Union of Secondary School Teachers). According to him, “we have come to the end of the logic and it is the students who suffer from it. The system has deteriorated so much over the years that we have come to this type of situation“. And to recall that at the national level in 5 years, we had won “20,000 students in the second degree, while eliminating 8,000 teaching posts”.
“Today we can’t find any more teachers. The training courses are no longer full. The contract workers – supposed to make occasional replacements – are more and more hired for a year… for lack of holders. The pool is empty” he explains.
“The salaries are insufficient, the working conditions so degraded with a constantly increasing number of students per class, that we can no longer recruit” laments Pierre Priouret. “We are not yet at the situation of the world of health, but we are getting dangerously close to it. We have been ringing the alarm for years, but no one is listening to us” he concluded.
This is not the first time that this versatile high school has been talked about. The tensions have been palpable for several years. In October 2021, 70 teachers had exercised their right to retire, to protest against their working conditions. And in December 2018, the building was partially set on fire by angry students.
At the time of publication of this article, we had not been able to reach the principal of this establishment. On the other hand, according to our information, the request of the parents of pupils who had trouble with this replacement French teacher, did not remain a dead letter. Each student who will take the French oral in 15 days will have in his possession a document issued by the management of the Blagnac establishment. Document asking the examiner to be lenient in his marking, if required in the context in which the students prepared these examinations.