Ministerial counter-offensive?
Time is limited since the 2025 school year is being prepared in January. On November 28, the Council of State ruled that the Minister of National Education did not have the authority to establish or modify the organization of teaching, which falls under the prerogatives of the Prime Minister.
Never mind! The ministry had recorded the cancellation as being purely formal as soon as the opinion of the rapporteur to the Council of State was known. A draft decree was immediately drawn up as well as a new decree identical to the previous one adding, for act 2, the principle, in Fourth and Third Years, of one hour per week in “needs groups” alternating in mathematics and French. . This hour would be included in the current timetable of these disciplines, therefore a sort of “support/deepening” in subtraction of the existing one.
A disowned ministry
A few days after the judgment, the elected officials of the SNES-FSU sitting on the Superior Council of Education (CSE) discovered its content, just before a preparatory commission imposed urgently on December 6. The objective was to submit these texts to the CSE on December 12. This forced passage of a ministry disowned by the profession and the Council of State was unacceptable.
The SNES-FSU proposed to the inter-union and the FCPE to boycott this body. This initiative, the weight of which was reinforced by the majority strike of December 5, pushed for the cancellation of the CSE, currently postponed indefinitely.
On December 4, government censorship required the resigning minister to no longer sit in court and only conduct current affairs; however, regulatory texts of this importance cannot fall within this scope. As it stands, we must wait for a new government to decide. The cancellation of the 2024 decree will not take effect until July 6 but, from now on, it is a strong positive signal for the teams, reinforced in their criticism of existing interclass groupings.
How to act in colleges?
Subject to the adoption of other texts in the meantime, at the start of the 2025 school year, it is the organization of the 2023 school year which will be regulatory: no more groups or “support until two hours”, but the return of the hour of “support/deepening” in Sixth Form and the reestablishment of personalized support.
The Council of State recalled the regulatory texts governing the skills of the CA, and reaffirmed without any ambiguity that the entire organization of interclass groupings “is left to the discretion of each establishment, taking into account its specificities”.
This is an argument for returning now to a more ordinary functioning in classes wherever this would not put the services of teachers in danger, by relying on the board of directors, and/or by dialoguing with the school leaders when possible. In the coming weeks, SNES-FSU will provide a kit to resist this suspended reform.
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