This Tuesday, many teachers participated in a strike movement. What were the demands and fears of teachers and unions.
Among the fears and subjects brought to the table by teachers during this strike movement is the announced end of teacher appointments. What will this actually change for them?
Today, this appointment is a status granted to a teacher who has “proven himself”: he has completed a certain number of hours and days and received a certain number of positive feedback from his superiors. With this appointment, he then becomes a civil servant with a special pension and sick leave plan.
The new government’s plan, ultimately, would therefore be for these appointments to be eliminated in favor of a “teaching permanent contract”, which would resemble an improved permanent contract with a pension supplement financed by the employer. For teachers who are already appointed, there will be no change: they will keep all their benefits.
The unions are against this measure for 2 reasons:
– Teachers will no longer have to go through this appointment process which allows them to prove themselves in the field.
– They fear that contracts from certain schools are more attractive than others, which would lead to inequality between establishments.
Concretely, they feared an “industrialization” of education.
Valorization of masters
Another concern of teachers: the promotion of their studies. Currently, teachers with a master’s degree are paid more than teachers with only a bachelor’s degree. They are entitled to a different scale which means they earn a better living.
The new government would like these teachers to prove the added value of their master’s degree by working more and taking on additional missions. Example: a primary school teacher could decide to work on a charter against school bullying in addition to his course and he will have to note it to be entitled to this increase. All with one objective: to promote the added value of the master’s degree.
The unions are against it for a specific reason:
– Here, what bothers the unions is the difficulty of demonstrating on paper the added value of their master’s degree, but also the administrative burden that this could cause.
For the students, it also changes
For students, there are 2 major changes.
– With a CESS, they will no longer be able to access a 7th technical or professional year. It’s a year that allows you to specialize in the job you want to do later, such as a hairdresser or watchmaker, for example.
– Another change, adult students who have dropped out of school for more than a year can no longer enroll in secondary 3 or 4.
The unions do not agree with this measure, because for them, it means that we are abandoning students who, after dropping out, wanted to return to school.
teaching teachers strike
