MAINTENANCE. Pap Ndiaye, the Minister of Education in Toulouse: “We were promised the worst, but it’s a successful start”
On the occasion of the start of the school year, the new Minister of Education Pap Ndiaye is visiting Toulouse. He gave an interview to La Dépêche du Midi. The opportunity to discuss many issues, from the reform of high schools to the projects of his ministry.
On the occasion of your first return to school as a minister, you chose to move to Toulouse where you took charge of the new Jules-Géraud Saliège school group. Beyond the tribute you wanted to pay to the Archbishop of Toulouse who opposed the deportations of Jews in 1942, is it for you to recall the preeminent role of the School in the prevention of anti-Semitism and more generally of racism?
I chose to come to Toulouse for my first start. There was therefore a strong symbolic dimension, partly because of the inauguration of a school group, which is always an important moment, and partly because of the name Jules-Géraud Saliège given to the ‘establishment. It was indeed a question of paying homage to the companion of the Liberation, to the Righteous that he was, but also through his person and his famous letter, to recall that what he could denounce at the time did not completely vanished and that the hydra of racism and anti-Semitism must be fought relentlessly. And I did it in this city of Toulouse which suffered ten years ago the atrocious assassins that we know by an Islamist terrorist, another form of anti-Semitism. It is therefore a call for vigilance and it is also a way for my ministry to insist on all forms of fight against racism, anti-Semitism, anti-LGBT hatred, everything that requires a policy of strong education. As the President of the Republic did himself yesterday, we are also intensifying our fight against all forms of harassment and cyber-harassment from the start of the school year with the generalization of the “Phare” program.
On the evening of this first day of the new school year, does it promise to be kept: has the National Education system succeeded in mobilizing a teacher in front of each class?
It’s still a little early this Thursday evening to draw a definitive balance sheet, but what I can say is that the start of the new school year took place under acceptable conditions, and in saying this, I neither ignore nor hide the structural difficulties. that we know. But thanks to the mobilization of the academic services, the ministry, the management staff and the teachers, I can say at this stage that we have made a success of this new school year. We were promised the worst, it’s a successful comeback.
France is facing a shortage of teachers, but this phenomenon is also practiced in the United States, Switzerland, Belgium and Quebec. Why have our contemporary societies turned away from the “most beautiful job in the world”, and how can we restore the taste for teaching?
The number of candidates for teaching competitions has fallen significantly. Twenty years ago there were around 60,000 candidates, then 30,000 last year and we are below 20,000 this year. This is completely insufficient to ensure recruitment to meet our needs, there is no doubt about that. We therefore have a structural recruitment crisis which arises in France but also in other countries. First of all, there is a factor on which much emphasis has been placed, and rightly so, and that is remuneration, which is no longer commensurate with the efforts required, which is no longer competitive in a labor market which at the moment is particularly tense with, it is a good thing, an unemployment rate which is falling significantly. But to sum up the problem of the attractiveness of the profession to a question of remuneration would be too simple. There are other factors at play, including in countries where salaries are much more satisfactory than in France, such as Germany, for example, where there is also a recruitment crisis even though salaries are twice as high. . Some of these factors are linked to the career, to the teaching profession. Today, young people no longer see themselves necessarily entering the profession and leaving it at retirement age, there are both geographical and professional mobility to which we must adapt in the public service because the profession was not thought of like that. There are also questions that I described as political and moral, linked to the status of the professor who no longer has the same centrality as he could have had in the past, not that in the past these professors were better paid, but they had a moral authority. , they were respected, they also had political centrality. How many politicians had been professors before having elective functions. We are talking about the republic of professors from elsewhere at the time of the Third Republic and of very many politicians delivered from this region. All this is no longer true today, there is the feeling of no longer being well considered, of no longer being visible and recognized, the feeling that they are sometimes spoken of badly, that their authority of knowledge is challenged by alternative sources, internet of course. So there is a crisis that I described as recognition and meaning of the teaching profession and one of my tasks is precisely to contribute to rehabilitating the profession beyond the strictly financial aspects, even if that counts of course. . It is clear that the revalorization of the profession is not limited to a simple question of money. We are therefore going to engage in discussions with the trade union organizations from October on, on the financial aspects, but also on the career questions to which I alluded a little earlier.
Emmanuel Macron promises a salary of €2,000 at the start of his career to encourage vocations. What do you say to experienced staff who, after 10 or 15 years of career, are also waiting for an increase in their remuneration?
We announced that the upgrading would not only concern the beginnings of a career, but also the mid-careers, which are stagnant, discouraged phases for many teachers. It is therefore not a question of revaluing only the first times of entry into the profession, but also the years that follow because it is indeed necessary for the attractiveness of the profession. We must also be able to remunerate new missions which allow salary increases within the framework of a new “pact” with the teachers.
The teaching community, but not only, notes a change in style between yourself and your predecessor. Do you understand the criticisms, sometimes virulent, which targeted Jean-Michel Blanquer?
What matters to me is to be myself. My predecessor initiated fundamental reforms in the first degree and in high school. I have a personality which is mine which is undoubtedly different from that of my first name, what could be more normal.
After disappearing, mathematics is making a somewhat discreet comeback in the first year common core before becoming a compulsory subject again. Is this a question of correcting an error of the last high school reform?
Mathematics is reintroduced in an optional form in the common core from the first. We know that this decision will not, on its own, correct a problematic level in mathematics for students, particularly in college. The level of mathematics is not sufficient. It is not this hour and a half of mathematics that will change everything. We are going to tackle a more structured project, which is that of the teaching of mathematics in France.
The reform of high schools was designed to be worked on and improved to such an extent that there is a monitoring committee. Let’s not forget that this reform collided with the health crisis. We have not yet clearly measured the effects of this reform as long as it has been biased by this health crisis with the cohorts of young people who have been subjected to confinements, to truncated examinations. Even the last baccalaureate which went well was not a completely normal baccalaureate because of the report of the dates of the specialty tests.
Regarding the reform of the baccalaureate, are you in favor of maintaining continuous assessment? Will there also be a change of dates for the specialty tests practiced in March?
The bac is 40% continuous assessment and 60% final tests. It is therefore an important place given to continuous monitoring. When you look at comparable reviews around the world, it’s a continuous check. We are only joining what is done elsewhere. We obviously confirm the reform of the baccalaureate. Regarding the problem of the calendar, it is complex because we want the notes of the teachers of specialties to be taken into account on Parcoursup. March may seem too early, but we are stuck with spring break, which lasts an entire month.
The President of the Republic calls for a “Copernican revolution” in National Education? What are his expectations and do you share them?
Of course. It is first of all a reform of methods. Historically, in National Education, reforms coming from the top and descending through an organized administration that is very but fairly rigid in its functioning, which is a good thing when you have to put 12 million children in school as we did today. What the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister want is to give opportunities for action to the field, to schools, to establishments rather than to say wait for the positive reform that will come to you. That is to say, build an educational project around your needs and what you want to do for your students, imagine it and we will finance you and support you, while maintaining a national framework. It is not a question of questioning the national programs but of giving a little air to a historically rigid system. This is a new method which is also being tested in Marseille. The President announced the creation of a different pedagogical innovation fund endowed with 500 million euros which will be used to support and finance the projects that will be proposed by the educational communities. With the idea of improving the success of all children.
Doesn’t the French school suffer from the repeated reforms that each new Minister of Education believes must be undertaken? Will a reform bear your name?
I don’t have that ambition. My only ambition from the point of view of the levels, is to look closely at the colleges which we know have a certain number of difficulties in terms of student results. Primary school has been transformed with priority given to fundamental knowledge, to the duplication of CP-CE1 in priority education. The school has also been transformed. We are undertaking work on the college, the different dimensions of which still need to be worked out, in particular the implementation of the Futures half-day. My goal is not reform for reform’s sake. I also take into account the state of weariness of school communities after the health crisis. First you have to restore confidence. For this, we have the question of salary increases, career development and then the educational projects designed by the teams in the field. Call it what you will, but my ambition is directed towards three fundamental objectives: improving the general level, the success of all students and therefore a policy of equal opportunities, and finally the well-being of students.