On November 8, Nicolas Sarkozy took aim at nursery school teachers. Sixteen years ago, in 2008, Xavier Darcos, his former Minister of National Education, also joked about the “diaper changes” carried out by teachers “recruited with bac + 5”. Behind these contemptuous remarks lies an old budgetary debate: the place given to nursery school in our country, long optional, is therefore still considered too expensive by some on the right.
It’s not a good time to be a school teacher these days, especially in kindergarten. Nicolas Sarkozy did not miss them during a conference in Var, this Friday, November 8. “I am told: There are not enough civil servants in National Education, but this is incredible demagoguery”declared the former President of the Republic, between 2007 and 2012.
« The status of the school teacher (…) it’s 24 hours a week (…) six months of the year (…) Between holidays and weekends…”, continued the former president of the LR party. “ So I know well, we have to prepare the lessons… Kindergarten, large section, he quipped, provoking laughter from the assembly. I know you have to grade papers and I know it’s a tough job being a teacher, but we have to tell the truth now, we can’t afford a million teachers. »
The statement made, which was particularly outrageous and included figures which were either false or imprecise, was mainly aimed at displaying self-satisfaction with the policy of reducing the number of civil servants carried out during his mandate: “ You take all the Presidents of the Republic, General de Gaulle included, from 1958 until now, all of them, out of the eight, there is one who reduced the number of civil servants, it’s me, 155,000 civil servants in less », declared Nicolas Sarkozy.
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It was also a question of supporting the government project led by Michel Barnier which intends to reduce the number of teachers in primary schools, which the latter justifies due to the demographic fall: the number of births has been falling since 2013. -2014 while the primary school has been rather preserved in recent years.
Old budget debate
Nicolas Sarkozy’s former Minister of National Education, Xavier Darcos, gave almost the same speech, on July 3, 2008 before the Senate Finance Committee, concerning preschool for children under three years old: ” Is it really logical, when we are so concerned about the proper use of state funds, that we give bac +5 exams to people whose function will essentially be to have students do naps for children or changing their diapers? I ask myself the question, these people having the same skills for example as if they were CM2 teachers ».
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This declaration led to a debate, relayed by the publication of a work on the possible abolition of nursery schools. According to the author, Julien Dazay, National Education inspector, these establishments did not fulfill their mission and were similar to real daycare centers. If we take into account naps and recess, children only attend 35 minutes of instruction over three hours of class, he said.
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This contempt, which at the time sparked a huge outcry on social networks and among unions, above all reflected an old budgetary debate. And if he focused on small section classes, it is because Xavier Darcos, former inspector of National Education, former mayor of Périgueux was a fine expert on the subject. Enrolling a maximum of children under three years old suits the mayors, he explained, because it helps avoid class closures. A great classic in a rural environment. He was all the less tender because at the time, nursery school was optional… Some 30,000 to 40,000 children did not go to school before the age of four, or even five or six.
Many teachers
But times have changed. In 2019, Jean-Michel Blanquer, Minister of National Education, made school compulsory from early childhood, aware of the fundamental role of nursery school in pre-learning reading, mathematics, writing, in memorizing vocabulary, rules of social life, etc. In passing, he inevitably made a “ gift » financial to private education under contract, which has been criticized by some within public education.
So, of course, teachers in small section schools supervise afternoon naps because three-year-old children need to sleep. It’s difficult to get them to consume vocabulary between two and four hours, whatever the organization envisaged. However, it seemed established, since 2019, that kindergarten was not a simple “ daycare », costing less to parents and local authorities than a crèche.
Is it necessary to remind you that, even if kindergarten teachers do not have papers to correct when they return home, they do have lessons to prepare, multiple educational activities to invent? And they must be full of energy when faced with three or four year old children whose attention span is still very fluctuating. We cannot strongly advise our politicians – and in particular Nicolas Sarkozy – to delve into the comprehensive school programs that the educational institution regularly produces for its nursery school teachers. They would discover that they are demanding.
