School emergency. This is the feeling that prevails the day after the back-to-school press conference by the Minister of National Education, Gabriel Attal. If the measures announced correspond to the course set by Emmanuel Macron, the method follows three imperatives: raising the educational level, enforcing rights and duties, and building an emancipatory school.
A triptych that wants to be proactive without avoiding semantic clichés. During his back-to-school conference, Gabriel Attal hammered it: “School must elevate”, and to do this, the minister enjoins all French people to “national union”, beyond “political quarrels”. If he had announced a good part of the announcements, the day before, during the 20 hours of TF1, the minister detailed the main measures he has set himself to “repair the school”. An objective in itself, even if the ban on the abaya, a garment considered religious and proselytizing, eclipses the educational questions in this new school year.
Among “the evils of the school” identified by Gabriel Attal, the decline in academic level occupies the first place in his roadmap. The low results of the French school on a European scale being alarming, Gabriel Attal intends “to put the package on fundamental knowledge”. An obvious urgency.
The famous Pisa ranking, which assesses the understanding of students in OECD countries, places France in 23rd place in the ranking comprising 79 States. In mathematics and science, she obtains the penultimate place of the international study Timss, which analyzes, with the magnifying glass, the performances of the pupils of CM1 and 4th. No wonder, then, that the Minister announces “a shock of basic knowledge”. The artificial formula contrasts with the reality cited by the Minister: “A 4th in 2018 has the level of a 5th grader in 1995”, while a 6th does not have the required level…
The construction sites begin, therefore, from kindergarten. The minister intends to train by the end of the five-year term “100% of the 370,000 school teachers” required. The splitting of classes will continue in the large section in the ZEPs (priority education zones), while the school “from 2 years old” will be extended there. The minister also promises classes with a maximum of 24 students. Just like in CP and CE1 where he wants to put an end to overloaded staff.
In primary school, priority will be given to reading and writing. Each week, two hours will be dedicated in CP – “crucial year” – to mastering reading. And to better objectify the difficulties and the progress, the minister plans evaluations at CM1. Finally, in CM2, once a week, “students will have to produce a written text”.
The college is not left out. From the start of the school year, the “new 6th grade” will include “one hour per week of support or accompaniment” in French or mathematics. In 4th, a pivotal year before the patent, students will be assessed through a digital test.
The Minister wants to make fundamental knowledge the essential link of his policy. On the high school side, the 1st French advance tests (EAF) will be based on 16 texts, and no longer 20. Regarding mathematics, “all 1st general students will benefit from a minimum of one and a half hours of mathematics per week”, admitting removing math was a mistake. Finally, the seniors will see their specialty tests postponed to June. The objective being to “reconquer not only the month of June, but the whole of the third quarter”.
Immediate effect, the specialty notes will be untied from Parcoursup. Finally, the Minister intends to make the vocational school “a path of excellence, chosen, and no longer suffered”. Another essential point announced, the reconquest of the 15 million hours lost “due to the absence of teachers, partly due, according to the minister, to “administrative organization”. Clearly, Gabriel Attal wants to put an end to meetings and teacher training encroaching on school time. They will have to take place on other slots. To see the feasibility and the reaction of the teaching staff. Especially if he must, a priori, add hours to his schedule.
If Gabriel Attal wants to focus his mandate on the knowledge component, his intervention makes school a civic and political issue. Thus, the focus is on the family vs. school relationship. Thwarting determinism, being a “knowing and acting citizen” thanks to a “shock of trust between the French and the school” should make it possible “to avoid a breach of trust between low-income families” and the institution. To do this, the minister is betting on “a school that emancipates and uplifts” based on “rights and duties rather than “complacency and a race to the bottom”.
Among these rights, those of students who will be better supported against bullying, “great cause this school year”. Because “being at peace at school” is an imperative. “A school that emancipates students and teachers through happiness” is a prerequisite, according to the minister. Teachers are not forgotten. “The school’s duty of recognition towards the teachers passes”, also, “through the remuneration”. All teachers will benefit from a monthly increase between 125 and 250 euros net, unconditionally.
Finally, the school as a republican sanctuary is at the heart of the mission of the Minister of National Education. “Redesign of the EMC [civic and moral education] program with a particular emphasis on secularism, expansion of media education, expansion of the Culture Pass to 6th and 5th grades or increase in sports hours “in an Olympic year” . Gabriel Attal intends to make the school a living symbol of the Republic. With a risk perhaps, to make it a reflection of the tensions of French society. “After the riots this summer, bringing our values ??closer to young people is one of the life assurances of the Republic. »
