Since the left failed to reform normal schools by creating the monster IUFM (university teacher training institute), its successive avatars, generated by the right and university entropy, have continued to aggravate the problem of teacher training. The latter ended up contributing largely – if not exclusively – to the bankruptcy of the school, which led, in an inexorable fall of dominoes, to that of the education system, then of the republican social pact as a whole. It is therefore urgent to tackle it.
From the baccalaureate, offer talented young people the opportunity to become teachers, better prepare them for the competitive exam and the profession, on the model of integrated preparatory courses – like the educational engineers that they are or should be –, offer them, after this competitive exam, a paid professional master’s degree: “That’s a good idea! » The best for a long time for the French school…
After listening to Ms. Belloubet [minister of national education], reading the first articles on the subject and hearing the first announcements, we may even be tempted to believe that, for once, politicians have listened to those on the ground, those who, for years, by tinkering almost clandestinely with all that remains of local (and often voluntary) training resources, have kept poorly and poorly trained teams at arm’s length. O joy!
However, before sounding the drum and sounding the musette, let us remember that the recent exploits of Macron, during the lightning transition of his “doppelgänger” Attal to national education, have above all shown us a penchant for simple, easy and obsolete solutions. to complex, difficult and current problems: level groups, uniforms, college selection, sectors and other distressing nonsense.
In terms of pedagogy, we are no longer in “Foiriland” (an expression used by the inspection and management bodies to designate all the crazy ideas coming “from above” and which we already know will not work and why) than in Singapore… Consequently, it does not seem pointless to reflect on some “details” that are still unclear and which could well constitute the premises of a new future fiasco.
To begin with, how can we attract good-level students to a preparatory course, such as the Ecole Normale Supérieure or engineering schools? Post-baccalaureate selection should be as careful as in these sectors and training of a comparable level and intensity should be offered. Who will build and drive it? Letting the University do its thing – which has above all shown a lack of know-how in terms of professionalizing teachers and a crippling inability to work in partnership with field trainers – is a recipe for failure. For too long, teachers have been essentially trained by academics who have never practiced their profession and who have incorrect representations of it.
If some have their place in these preparatory courses and then in the new normal schools, as didacticians, it is above all within the profession itself that trainers must be recruited, and in much greater numbers than today. ‘today. This would at the same time make it possible to offer real career development to teachers who want it and are able to do so. There are already internal exams to recruit these teacher-trainers, but they are difficult, not very transparent and currently result in more work for the same – or even less – salary. One of the many aberrations of the system!
Then, waiting for the license (three years, therefore) to take the competitive exam and get paid is too much; this excludes a whole category of talented young people who will have difficulty financing a demanding three-year course. Being able to take the competition in the second year, for these selected students, would be more logical, in the spirit of recruiting them early and on merit. Obviously, they will have to be paid earlier and “internized” for longer: three years, up to master 2.
But it is logical after all that the post-competition part, which must include numerous internships and progressive immersion, is longer than the preparation part. Teaching is a real job for a versatile, autonomous, creative engineer who knows how to work in a team. Today we are far from providing them with all these skills before releasing them into establishments – often the most difficult. Three years isn’t too much.
Finally, it would be catastrophic for the future of the profession to treat continuing and initial training subsidiarily and independently. Each reform has failed to put in place the conditions for them to necessarily interact, at the same time renouncing the profession’s ability to follow the evolution of techniques and society (which would have prevented it from being locked in, in the long run). , in the impasses of nostalgic conservatism or unbridled innovation). However, I did not have the impression that the question was going to be seriously studied from this systemic angle.
And yet, initial work-study training, guided, constructed and evaluated by trainers from the profession, in partnership with the university, with trainees in observation then in responsibility, in the process of preparing a master’s degree, is certainly an opportunity unique way of ensuring the dynamics of our education system. Not only because internships will free up teachers and time for continuing education – which would no longer need to be to the detriment of students – but also because this could be thought out and articulated according to needs. of the institution without sacrificing those of establishments, teams, or even individuals.
This articulation is technical, delicate, of course, but it was sometimes intelligently carried out – in certain IUFMs, such as in Cergy, in the 1990s, where the training plan was a real lace but where the training-action-research courses allowed multi-category teams to build and experiment, in classes in priority education zones, with tools which were then acclaimed and used throughout France.
We see that this government has a unique opportunity not to be, once again, off the mark by botching an essential reform, by neglecting overly technical details which will pass under the radar of the mainstream media, by failing to consult the field trainers and by once again entrusting the initial and continuing training of teachers to those who massacred them. The construction of a real educational engineering school or that of a new pseudo-university gas factory, costly and underperforming, will depend on the interlocutors and decision-makers who surround the new minister today. Given the record of Mr. Macron’s successive governments, we keep our fingers crossed.
Monique Picaud, Bagneux (Hauts-de-Seine)
