Disability, place of new technologies in schools, recruitment… The Minister of National Education Nicole Belloubet spoke this Thursday, at -, on various themes linked to school. We take stock.
No telephone in certain establishments at the start of the school year
The minister indicated that she would like to “experiment”, from the next school year, with the obligation for middle school students to leave their mobile phones at the entrance to the establishment, possibly in dedicated lockers. “I had the opportunity to say on several occasions that (…) I really wanted our students to arrive at school without mobile phones, because we know the harmful effects that this can produce”, particularly in terms of harassment, she said.
Asked about the form that this measure could take, the minister said she was considering the installation of dedicated lockers. “This is what I imagine, I would like us to experience it from next year,” she said. This will require “working with local authorities since it is with them that we build this type of object”, she added.
VIDEO. Mobile phones soon to be banned in college?
Thinking about digital tools
The minister also considered that it was necessary to “think better” about the use of digital tools in class, in particular tablets and computers sometimes made available to students. “We need supported educational digital technology (…) I’m not going to say here, let’s stop everything, let’s go back, but we have to think. We cannot throw digital technology around without knowing what uses, what educational uses we are going to link to it,” declared the minister.
“One of the objectives of the school is to prepare our students for the world of tomorrow and therefore we must give them the knowledge of artificial intelligence and digital technology, but accompanied by the teacher,” said she insisted, also wanting to “keep paper, because it gives a connection to reading in particular which is essential”.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal last week invited National Education to “sweep in front of its door” on the use of screens, after the submission of a report submitted by experts responsible for working on the use of screens by youth.
The minister apologizes
“I very simply apologize to the families who were hurt,” she declared after her controversial comments about students with disabilities. Guest of France 2 in the program “Les 4 Vérités” on April 22, the minister responded: “a disruptive student can be disruptive because he is in physical difficulty or because there is a handicap”. to the journalist’s question: “What is a disruptive student?” “.
“Very clearly, it was clumsiness,” she regretted, almost two weeks after this declaration, which had caused the associations and families concerned to react. “It’s all the more clumsy since one of my primary concerns (…) is really to establish a school for all, that is to say a school that welcomes all students” , she continued.
Lack of teachers in certain academies
After the alert from the majority union Snuipp-FSU, Nicole Belloubet admitted encountering “difficulties” in recruiting primary school teachers in certain places in the territory, notably in the academies of Versailles and Créteil. “In these academies, of course, we will have to recruit contractual staff for the next school year,” she has already warned.
To try to resolve the problem, “we are going to modify the initial training of our teachers,” she also recalled, following on from President Emmanuel Macron’s announcements of April 5. It will thus be possible to take the recruitment competition for school teachers at Bac + 3 “from next May”, compared to Bac + 5 until now. Teachers in training will be “compensated or remunerated, 900 euros the first year and 1,800 euros the second year, and by completing a master’s degree,” she detailed.
