Unrest in Education in France:
Teachers on Strike
by Sarah Elzas
Paris, France
Special To Education Update
Recently, thousands of people, mostly
teachers, marched through the center of Paris from Bastille
to the Assemblée Nationale
to protest, among other things, the decentralization of part
of the French national education system. This was not the first
time teachers had taken to the streets this year, nor even
the first time that month. Teachers all over France had been
on strike for several weeks, some since March when the education
minister, Luc Ferry, announced the government’s planned
education reforms. Education in France is centralized, managed
by the minister and his office, with input from other ministries,
such as culture, agriculture or employment. Teachers must take
a national entrance exam, and if they pass, they become part
of the Education Nationale, an institution that includes not
only teachers, but all school personnel as well, from guidance
counselors to maintenance staff. They join the vast fonction
publique (public service sector) that provides nearly 30% of
French jobs. Nationalized degree requirements that are taught
by teachers from all over the country in theory guarantee that
every student in France receives the same education. But today,
many people, teachers and politicians alike, are unhappy with
how the system currently functions; they just disagree over
how it should be fixed.
To explain his proposed reforms,
Ferry published a book in April, entitled “A letter to all who love school”,
in which he set out, in 134 pages, ten problems which he says
can be fixed by decentralizing the non-teaching members of
the Education Nationale. “We will experiment with giving
more management autonomy to school establishments, which should
allow them to make changes…and be held accountable,” he
writes. “This autonomy could be the key to all the other
reforms.”
What exactly does decentralization mean, and why does the
idea make thousands of teachers across the country so angry?
In 1984, a decentralization plan
gave ‘local communities’ the
autonomy to build and maintain school buildings, something
that until then had been done with direct oversight from the
centralized ministry. These communities consist of France’s
26 regions, 100 departments, 36,700 communes (the smallest
territorial divisions) as well as overseas territories.
The current plan, presented in March of this year, suggests
extending this decentralization to personnel, mostly to the
approximately 100,000 technical staff, called TOS, who include
orientation, cafeteria, housing as well as maintenance workers.
Until negotiations in June exempted them from the plan, school
heath and social workers as well as guidance counselors were
also set to be decentralized.
For those on strike, decentralizing any personnel is tantamount
to privatizing what should stay public sector jobs and would
jeopardize the whole education system. Communities could contract
out decentralized jobs to private companies, which would change
work conditions and work hours. This would disrupt what some
people say is an important continuity of adults in school environments.
“Particularly in difficult schools, it’s not just
the teachers, but a team of adults who each have a pedagogic
role in the school and come together to make a collective,” explained
Tristan, a young physics teacher in a high school in a northern
Paris suburb who was marching and did not want to give his
last name.
Indeed, the French Legislative Education
Code states that even non-teaching staff “are members
of the education community. They work directly within the
mission of education as a public service.”
Another argument against decentralizing the TOS is that it
could lead to complete decentralization of the education system.
“Right now, school is the same everywhere,” said
Alain, a colleague of Tristan’s who was also marching. “If
we let the TOS become decentralized, education might become
limited to regional needs.” And this would negate the
fundamental of the French system: a national system that guarantees
the same education for all students, whether they are in Paris,
rural Normandy or in Corsica.
While the teachers themselves are not directly affected by
the proposed reforms, they were striking anyway, out of solidarity
for their colleagues with more precarious work situations,
and also out of a fear of what the reforms could lead to. Of
course, no one can predict where the proposed reforms will
lead, or even in what form the plan will take when negotiations
are finished and it is finally presented to Parliament next
fall for a vote.
Ferry writes that he is committed
to nationalized education. “National
programs, exams and degrees guarantee justice, and the possibility
even of a common world.” Yet, along with arguing for
decentralizing the staff, he hints at decentralizing academics.
He writes that schools need to be given “tools and means,
within a national education policy, to exercise their prerogatives.” With
a national curriculum already in place, this implies further
decentralization.
“We don’t want to end up with an American system,” said
Marie-Claude, a middle school history teacher in Paris’ 13th
arrondissement. When pressed to elaborate, she explained: “It’s
a system without public servants, without national diplomas
or even national health care.” For her and many of her
colleagues, changes in the education system are a first step
down a slippery slope.#
This is the first
of a two-part series on the French education system. Next
month: The changing face of French students and
teachers. Sarah Elzas is a former assistant editor at Education
Update and is currently living and working in Paris.
