what impact does inflation have on family budgets? ask your questions

After two months of vacation, schoolchildren (6.5 million), college students (3.4 million) and high school students (2.2 million) began this morning to find their friends, get to know their teachers and discover their schedule. This year, inflation and the teacher recruitment crisis are weighing on the start of the school year. A phenomenon which is not new for the latter but which has worsened further this year, with more than 4,000 vacancies not filled in competitions in the country, out of 27,300 vacancies in the public and private sectors (and 850,000 teachers altogether).

“We obviously wanted there to be a teacher in front of each student for this start of the school year. And it is inevitably an anguish for the parents to ask themselves the question of knowing if this will be the case ”Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Thursday. on France Inter. “I’m not going to tell you that there can’t be a case [, avec] adjustments in the coming daysshe admitted. But, in any case, I think that this return to school will go well. »

The Minister of Education, Pap Ndiaye, has promised in recent days that, even if the conditions “are not optimal”the return will be “comparable to last year”, “with a teacher in front of each class”. To make up for the shortage of teachers, the national education system has recruited contract teachers – 3,000, according to Pap Ndiaye – trained in a few days before taking up their duties. In order to reassure, again, the Minister of Education, who is making his first comeback to this post, repeated that “more than 80% of contract employees have already taught”.

But the concerns are strong on the side of the parents of students as well as that of the unions. “Last year my son was in a CE1-CE2 dual level class. They were 28, the teacher was a little overloaded. She was often absent, she was not replaced for a week, they had found no one. We spent a week looking after our children”tells Agence France-Presse Bénédicte Candir, 45, in front of the Charles-Péguy elementary school in Créteil.

Parents of students fear “an explosive comeback”explains to AFP Nageate Belahcen, co-president of the FCPE, the first federation of parents of students. “Absent teachers who are not replaced, contract workers who are not sufficiently trained or maths in high school…Families are anxious”, she says. The unions, they denounce “a DIY” faced with the recruitment of contract workers during the summer.

“A teacher’s promise to every student seems more like a political slogan than reality”, said this week Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of SNES-FSU, the first secondary school union. This union launched the keyword #NotreVraieRentrée to collect testimonies within the establishments.

“We will have adults in front of the classes, not teachers”declares the Snuipp-FSU, the first primary union, which already fears that the lack of replacements will be felt from the first sick leave or maternity leave.

To restore the attractiveness of the teaching profession, the government has laid down some milestones on the remuneration side. Pap Ndiaye promised that“no teacher would start their career on less than 2,000 euros net per month from the start of the 2023 school year”. This would be “a starting salary, excluding bonuses”. And raises “meaningful” will take place, he said, without giving a timetable.