“We immediately demand 300 euros net per month for everyone, that would be a start for discussion”, said Friday August 26 on franceinfo Guislaine David, co-secretary general and spokesperson for Snuipp Fsu. Emmanuel Macron has announced that no teacher will start his career for less than 2,000 euros. The Minister of Education Pap Ndiaye specified that this increase would take place at the start of the 2023 school year. A 10% increase for all teachers was also announced without specifying a date.
franceinfo: Do these announcements meet your expectations?
Guislaine David: It is a promise that we have heard for five years since Jean-Michel Blanquer had announced a historic revaluation and that no more teacher would start his career with less than 2,000 euros. We haven’t seen it. Trainees start their career at 1,450 euros. We are going to have discussions which will begin in the fall, but the National Education budget, as announced, will not be able to allow this revaluation. Currently, you have to wait about 15 years of seniority to reach these 2,000 euros, so we do not see how, with the budget, everyone will be at 2,000 euros in one year. But we will go into discussion, this revaluation must be unconditional and concern the entire salary grid. We will ensure that this will be achieved in 2023. Under the previous five-year term, 50% of teachers were not upgraded.
Will the 10% increase be enough to make up for the delay that you denounce?
The 10%, we do not know if we will have them in a year. We immediately claim 300 euros net per month for all. This would already be a start to enter into discussion. The index point must be revalued. In 10 years, school teachers have lost about a month, to a month and a half of salary. So these 300 euros correspond to the catch-up over 10 years. Inflation is galloping and wages must also be indexed to inflation, that’s obvious. You can’t always lose. This has an impact on recruitment.
For the start of the school year, 3,000 new contract workers were hired. They are graduates but have not passed the teacher’s competition. Is this a good thing?
It is unsatisfactory. All the policy that was carried out for five years led to this crisis at the start of the school year. We have a competition that has gone from Master 1 to Master 2. We have a pool problem, so we no longer fill up the competitions, we have teachers who are not paid enough, so we have this crisis. We are currently recruiting people who have no knowledge, skills or qualifications in the trade. Teaching is a learned profession. We cannot improvise in front of the students. When you find yourself in front of a class of 25 or even 30 students, you have to have sufficient training to adapt and manage the class. The contract workers will do what they can, but they only have four days of training and that’s not enough. They will be on their own and when they are in difficulty, it will be difficult to recover the class.