half of National Education staff have received no training, according to a study by the SE-Unsa union

The government says it trains all school staff in secularism, the teachers’ union Unsa carried out its investigation and estimates that half of the staff have not been trained.

Attacks on secularism are regularly singled out in educational establishments. The training of teachers and other National Education personnel is even more of a crucial issue, particularly in knowing how to react in the event of course disputes or the wearing of ostentatious signs.

Since the death of Samuel Paty in 2020, killed by an Islamist terrorist, the government has greatly strengthened the training modules, and prides itself on training all adults present in schools, colleges and high schools. But the SE-Unsa union carried out its own survey (nearly 5,000 respondents), and found that half of the staff had not received any training during their career.

However, this figure is not a surprise for the union since it is consistent with its feedback from the field. The new training courses, launched in 2021, have not reached everyone. The young teachers are those who have received the most training, since for three years, a module has been added to their course to become a teacher. Contract workers, on the other hand, who are massively hired to compensate for the shortage of staff, whether they are teachers, AESH (staff who support children with disabilities), or supervisors, seem to be the forgotten ones in these training sessions.

Even among the agents actually trained, many denounce elements that are too abstract, without a concrete case study, analyzes Elisabeth Allain Moreno, general secretary of SE-Unsa, who carried out this investigation: “Many training courses define the principle of secularism. But in everyday cases, dialoguing with families, reacting to a student who does not want to come to swimming, to two students in a conflict situation, all these elements which put the the more staff are in difficulty, there is a big deficit in training and support.”

The union is therefore asking to begin with a precise inventory, from the Ministry of National Education but also more concrete training, in person and not on the internet and finally for all professions present in educational establishments.