During a press conference held this Monday in Nîmes, Sophie Béjean, rector of the Montpellier academy, and Christophe Mauny, DASEN du Gard, presented the academic priorities for the next school year. Good news: no cuts to teaching positions are planned.
This Monday, in the premises of the Departmental Services Department of National Education of Gard in Nîmes, Sophie Béjean, rector of the Montpellier academy, detailed the academic priorities for the 2025/2026 school year. Accompanied by Christophe Mauny, DASEN du Gard, she highlighted strategic and priority areas for the coming year.
Secularism: 28,000 staff already trained
“The year 2024 was particularly rich thanks to the launch of the Academy project, the result of consultation with the educational community, our partners and local elected officials. “, she announces. This project is structured around our fundamental values and secularism. And the rector added: “The academy has intensified its actions in terms of training with some 28,000 people trained in secularism, or 60% of the staff”. Furthermore, she adds, “a Gender Violence Observatory has been created, while security efforts have been consolidated, a priority which will continue in 2025.”
“We strengthen fundamental knowledge”
Student success remains a central pillar. “We reinforce fundamental knowledge while offering ambitious orientation courses. In 2024, more than 90% of second-year students have completed an internship,” rejoiced Sophie Béjean. In response to professions in tension and local needs, new training courses have emerged, such as courses linked to the nuclear industry in Bagnols-sur-Cèze or a health option in Alès.
The University of Nîmes is also part of this dynamic, with its Gardener project, winner of a call for future investment projects, and its recent status as an Experimental Public Establishment (EPE). These developments, coupled with strengthened links with local high schools, illustrate a desire for territorial anchoring.
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-Additional positions
The start of the 2025 school year looks good thanks to the recent decisions announced by the Minister of National Education, Élisabeth Borne. The absence of cuts in teaching positions and the creation of 2,000 positions for supporting students with disabilities (AESH) offer valuable room for maneuver. Additional resources to be linked to a demographic drop estimated at 3,200 students next year, thus making it possible to strengthen student supervision, particularly in schools but also in middle and vocational high schools (21 students per class in average at the start of the 2025/2026 school year compared to 23 students per class at the start of the 2017/2018 school year).
Christauphe Mauny, DASEN du Gard (left) and Sophie Béjean, rector of the Montpellier academy. © AV
Thanks to the system relating to the safety of students and staff, additional resources were deployed from the first week of January 2025 (10 positions of principal education advisor (CPE) and 32 positions of education assistants (AED) .
Renewed needs groups
In middle school, the needs groups in 6th and 5th grade, established despite strong opposition within the educational community, will be maintained for the 2025/2026 school year. The rector assures him: “It is still too early to measure the concrete benefits, but an in-depth evaluation will be carried out in the long term in order to determine its effectiveness.”
Finally, the rector reiterated her commitment to culture, sport and civic engagement. Initiatives, such as the introduction of 30 minutes of daily physical activity in primary schools and the development of sports-studies classes, illustrate this desire.
