the essential
A month after a difficult start to the school year marked by the absence of many teachers, both in primary and secondary schools, the rector of the Toulouse academy, Mostafa Fourar, promises total improvement before the All Saints’ holidays. According to him, the dizzying increase in sick leave has undermined the teacher replacement system.
What do you say to the number of parents facing, once again this year, absences of professors and teachers in the Toulouse academy?
A large number of parents write to us about their child’s case and it is difficult to respond to everyone. We do not deny the difficulties of recruiting teachers during the 2024 school year. They are both national and academic. But we assure you that everything is done, with all of our services, to do the maximum. They are fully mobilized. The start of the school year is planned six months before. It is in the second level that job assignments pose the most difficulties. We have 127 unfilled positions, which represents 0.7% of secondary education positions. I understand that parents do not think in terms of averages or numbers, but it is a reality.
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But where does the problem come from?
Since the start of the school year, we have been faced with a significant increase in sick leave filed by teachers. But also requests for part-time work, maternity and parental leave, therapeutic part-time work, which we can hear very well. There are also split breaks prescribed by doctors which disrupt schedules. In the end, as of September 23, we find ourselves with an increase in replacement requests which reaches 3,113 in secondary education, an increase of 186 replacement requests compared to last year. Of these 3113, 2858 cases were resolved, or 92%. There are still difficulties in certain territories because the contract workers we want to recruit do not want to work for only five hours a week. And at the same time, we are also losing student numbers in primary and secondary schools.
There is a worrying shortage of French teachers in middle and high schools. What are you doing to fix it?
It is in this area that there are the most difficulties. We are missing 55 French teachers, who need to be replaced, compared to 16 last year. These shortages also affect mathematics teachers (15) and English teachers (11). The most affected areas are in Tarn-et-Garonne, Lot and Comminges. Faced with this situation, we are not standing idly by. We put recruitment tools in place. 2000 qualified contract workers were recruited, compared to 1700 last year. In Letters, where the needs are greatest, there are 191 recruitments of contract workers compared to 120 in 2023. Finally, we arrive at 900 full-time teachers dedicated to replacement. Unfortunately, demands are exploding faster than our capacity to replace everyone.
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TESTIMONIALS. “It’s a big joke”, “we are very worried”… these parents exasperated by the lack of teachers and professors
Parents of students want these lost lesson hours to be made up. What is the difficulty?
We ask school heads to organize these catch-up hours with remuneration for teachers who accept. But the latter, for the most part, refuse and I deplore this because it puts students in difficulty. By the All Saints holidays, we remain convinced that the replacement difficulties will be behind us and everything will be back to normal.
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