This December 18 in its columns, Le Parisien is conducting an investigation into an observation that many parents have made since the start of the school year: their children are deprived of traveling with their class. If he is difficult to know precisely how many were canceledthe various protagonists interviewed by the daily are unanimous on the results after 4 months of classes.
This is the case for example at the Orbellière college, in Olivet (Loiret), where all the students had to draw a line under their outings. “The college is no longer able to finance the accompanying portion of trips to Ireland, Auvergne and Seignosse (Landes). Accordingly, all trips planned for 2025 are canceled » management explained in a message last month. “Cancellations like those at the Orbellière college, there are plenty of themregrets Gérard Heinz, high school principal and member of SNPDEN, the first union of school leaders. We see this in all regions of France and this is even more the case in collegesbecause the latter depend directly on the departments which find themselves very financially fragile. »
The latter continues by specifying that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a real impact: “Until the health crisis, this did not have any unfortunate consequences, because the working capital of the establishments was sufficient to meet this burden. But since Covid and the energy crisis, it has become more complicated. If you no longer have the means to draw from your reserves, the trip falls through. Last year, in my high school, I had to cancel a trip to Italy for these same reasons. »
Contacted by Le Parisien, the Ministry of National Education defends itself by recalling that in 2023, it has “intensified its support for educational establishments by transferring 38.6 million euros in educational creditss which are not intended to finance school trips”. An increase of 13 million euros whose purpose is “the purchase of college textbooks and correspondence notebooks”.
