A school project, in order to attract students from neighboring departments, is currently being drawn up.
In order to obtain the reopening of the local educational unit (UPP) of Sainte-Énimie, described as the smallest college in France, which did not welcome students at the start of the September 2024 school year, teachers and elected officials of the commune Gorges-du-Tarn-Causses proposed to write a project around “a theme on art, culture, heritage, even design, coherent, moreover, with the rehabilitation project of the monastery“.
Friday, November 29, Laurent Suau, president of the Department, and David Raymond, academic director of National Education Services (Dasen), organized a meeting in Florac, to discuss the future of the UPP of Sainte-Énimie. “A meeting with great ambition from all the stakeholders on this subject, even if everyone knows the challenge that lies before us“, noted the former mayor of Mende.
Demographic decline
The meeting started with an observation from Dasen on school demography with “a national demographic decline, globalized across Occitania and in particular in the first degree. Three departments are particularly affected: Lozère, Lot and Tarn-et-Garonne. We are already seeing a drop of 1 to 2% in colleges, which will become more pronounced in 3-4 years, due to the drop in the number of children in primary education. To date, this represents approximately 100 students out of 2,300 middle school students.”
He continues: “The other specificity of the six colleges in the south of Lozère is the high proportion of students coming from neighboring departments (Gard and Hérault mainly), between 40 and 50%. However, the drop in school enrollment is also noticeable in Gard and Hérault. The registration of students from outside the departments is subject to the opinion of their department of origin, which implies an additional unknown in terms of demographic developments in our territory. Despite this, it must be emphasized that the department is attractive. Thus, there are 110 more children in school in the department compared to the number of births (especially in the Nasbinals, Villefort and Vialas sectors).”
Communicate outside the department
Local elected officials and the president of the Department proposed to “support the project both in terms of the means of relaunching the establishment and in terms of communication outside the department”, to “bring children from elsewhere, such as Gard and Hérault”. The idea is to draw inspiration from other colleges in Lozère, such as Saint-Étienne-Vallée-Française, with the equestrian section, and Bleymard, with the Young Firefighters section.
The academic director expects the document within ten days to be able to distribute it before the Christmas holidays.
