For two weeks, Caroline’s daughter, a 6th grade student in Noisy-le-Grand, in Seine-Saint-Denis, has been absent, sick for several days before being tested positive for Covid-19. But during all this time, she had no news from her teachers. “I was not getting work from my teachers”says the young girl, despite her mother’s repeated requests to the college.
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Caroline is quite worried that her daughter is missing so many lessons, especially since her absence is added to that of several teachers, since the start of the school year, themselves sick or having to look after their own children. “I am worried about dropping out of schoolshe says. There was this break already with the covid in previous years, so there is a delay in the students, it all adds up. And in the end, it is periods without work that are long.”
According to the Federation of Parents’ Councils, which counts the absences of teachers on its participatory site, nearly 40,000 hours lost, just because of non-replacements. For its part, the latest report from the Ministry of National Education on Friday January 28 reports 21,000 classes closed because of the epidemic, 572,000 children and 35,000 teachers infected.
Families regret these gaping schedules. But they are not the only ones: the teachers too. In recent weeks, Gaëlle Chable, teacher in a school in Troyes and representative of the Snuipp union in Aube, has often worked with only half of her students present. “At one point, we did daycare”she says.
“It was very, very disjointed. We the five weeks there, it feels like we’ve lost them over the year.”
Gaëlle Chable, teacher in Troyesat franceinfo
“When half the class is missing, you wonder if you can do a new learning, if you can do it the next day, wait until everyone has come backshe continues. And then we didn’t have the same students in front of us the whole period.” Gaëlle Chable fears consequences for the entire school year.