Toulouse: Eric Pinot, president of the FCPE de la Haute-Garonne, denounces “the uberization of the school”
Éric Pinot, president of the FCPE de la Haute-Garonne, paints a more than mixed picture a month after the start of the school year. Without giving figures, he assures that there is still a lack of “teachers, AESH, technical and administrative staff…”
What is your assessment of this return to school in 2022 in the department, one month after the resumption of classes in schools, colleges and high schools?
A few days after the start of the school year, we were received at the rectorate by Mr. Sieye, the Dasen [directeur académique des services de l’éducation nationale, NDLR], who told us that in relation to the conditions assigned by the ministry, it went well. I give him satisfaction at this level, because I think he did the best he could for the start of the school year in primary and secondary school with the means allocated to him. At the FCPE, we don’t have any figures at the moment, but what comes back from our local councils is that everything is missing: teachers, class hours, support for students with disabilities. (AESH), technical staff. As usual, we are managing the shortage, the austerity, the mismanagement. This is what happens in national education, forcing parents of students not to be content. There is even a lack of administrative staff at the rectorate to be able to make corrected assignments.
Are these missing positions, in your opinion, distributed throughout the department or mainly in the schools of Toulouse and the metropolis?
It’s basically in and around Toulouse. How do you want the start of the school year to be serene? We have been sold republican values, order and authority for five years, in particular with Mr. Blanquer [ex-ministre de l’Education nationale], but we strive to organize austerity, even precariousness in national education. The government continues to make announcement effects. Once again, we had an emergency plan for the economic sector, but nothing for national education and for hospitals. The FCPE is not a union, but we are there to defend public schools and so that our children receive an education that holds up. I note the message sent to our national federation by Minister Pap Ndiaye this weekend where he tells us of his love for public schools, but he has not sent his children there… I believe that the government is trying to make national education a market.
What are the major projects of FCPE 31 this year, and what are the major expectations of parents?
The parents of pupils realize that they have a school with less and less means and more and more tinkering. In Toulouse, we also experience the issues of national politics. We are currently fighting for the development of our actions within the FCPE. This is where we see that an association of parents who are present, mobilized and federated, is of some use. We are also fighting for an inclusive school, so that all children with disabilities benefit from an AESH. We also fight for each class to have a teacher.
What does the FCPE think of hiring a thousand contract teachers in the Toulouse academy to fill the gaps?
You need a teacher for each class, with a status and training. Not what you see with job dating where people follow a four-day training course. We don’t make second-year medical students do open-heart surgery? Today, on manages mismanagement and cookie-cutter, on uberizes the school. What we want is to open positions. The cement of living together is called into question and the school participates in this. We must recruit teachers with real status and who want to do this job.