He does not mince his words. It’s because he has a lot on his conscience. Gilles Deka, who lives in Cahors, has just published “Why is school going so badly?” published by La Guillotine. The Lotois knows what he is talking about: he was a supervisor, inspector, teacher, professor then principal at the Montcuq college and, at the end of his career, head of establishment at the Montesquieu high school in Bordeaux. Throughout his career, Gilles Deka, who has been retired since 2018, wonders about the evolution of national education. Today, his diagnosis is not good and his right of reservation is over: “The results are deteriorating at all levels and in all disciplines. I questioned myself out of passion but also with anger”.
The former civil servant used his experience: “I have come to the conclusion that immobility is linked to paradoxical mechanisms, to inconsistencies: teamwork is required while the system operates vertically , loyalty becomes submission, executives self-administer and teachers tend to deal only with good students. Moreover, during meetings, we do not talk about students but about passing rates. They are not than curves and excel tables. I, who was a manager, had the feeling of being an empty shell”.
He warns: this book, his first to be released this Wednesday, is neither left nor right. To get out of the impasse, Gilles Deka offers several solutions: “adapt the programs to the needs of the rural world, in Montcuq for example, the pupils need less physical education but more geo-history”. He also wants to adapt the timetables for schoolchildren who sometimes arrive at school after an hour by bus. The author now wants to take his speech to the national level and dreams of coming to present his book on the set of Yann Barthès, at Quotidien.
In the meantime, he is signing on Saturday August 19 at the Calligrammes bookshop in Cahors, from 10 a.m. to noon. He will also present his book at the hotel-restaurant La Chartreuse, in Cahors, on Saturday September 9 at 5 p.m. and in the presence of the publisher. Places limited to 70 people.
