While the government is counting on 30% signatories, many teachers do not wish to carry out the additional tasks requested, such as short-term replacement, to receive an annual bonus.
To sign, not to sign? At the start of the 2023 school year, teachers face a dilemma. To improve their salary, they can now sign the teaching pact. This system, announced by Emmanuel Macron in April, allows them to receive an annual bonus in exchange for additional missions to carry out. Among them: ensuring replacements for absent colleagues or support hours for sixth grade students. Each teacher can decide to opt for one, two or three missions, also called “bricks”, and receive for each up to 1,250 euros gross over the year.
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An attractive proposition on paper, but far from widely convincing, according to the first feedback on the ground from the unions. The former Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye, had however counted on 30% signatories. “Our figures have not yet stabilized, but today, what emerges from the vast majority of responses to our survey is that the missions of the pact are far from being assured”relates Sophie Vénétitay, sgeneral secretary of the Snes-FSU union. “According to initial feedback from the departments, the administration is struggling to get it signed”emphasizes for his part Maud Valegeas, federal co-secretary of SUD Education.
Only the National Union of National Education Management Personnel (SNPDEN) has so far put forward a figure. In the second degree, its secretary general Bruno Bobkiewicz believes that “less than 10%” pacts were accepted “in more than half of establishments in France”. During a press conference at the end of August, the new minister Gabriel Attal said he believed in “a rise in power” of the teaching pact while recognizing that it would “you have to convince”. Rejection of the doctrine “Work more to earn more”fear of “privatization” of their profession, inequalities between women and men… Dhe teachers explained to franceinfo why they do not want to sign the pact.
Their salary doesn’t really increase
“This pact echoes Nicolas Sarkozy’s ‘work more to earn more’. It insinuates that we are not working enough”, deplores Céline, school teacher in Lorient (Morbihan). Go and do maths and French with the students on Wednesdays, as the system offers to primary school teachers? Céline is already working “about three hours to prepare [sa] class” and spends time with her own children. “We are among the lowest paid teachers in Europe. This summer, I met a German kindergarten teacher who receives 5,000 euros per month”says the woman who earns 2,300 euros a month after 20 years of work.
“We deserve a real upgrade, not bonuses!”
Céline, primary school teacherat franceinfo
In his school, only one of his colleagues signed the pact out of nine teachers.
During the presidential campaign, Emmanuel Macron promised a 10% increase for all teachers. But for the start of the 2023 school year, this revaluation finally reaches 5.5%, apart from the bonuses conditioned by the pact. With inflation, the temptation to sign it is necessarily very strong, judges Jonathan, professor of history and geography at the vocational agricultural high school in Orthez (Pyrénées-Atlantiques). “Before the summer, we estimated that a maximum of 5% of teachers would sign it. When it resumed in September, many more were interested”, reports the one who now reassesses the number of signatories in his establishment to 50%. He hasn’t changed his mind.
“We unravel the status of teachers by contractualizing missions.”
Jonathan, history and geography teacherat franceinfo
For Brendan, French teacher at the Authie high school in Doullens (Somme), “we don’t buy staff”. “The best way to recruit people is to pay them better without conditions”judges the teacher, who also fears several major consequences of this pact. “If you bank on that to ensure replacements, what will become of the TZRs [titulaires sur zone de remplacement, chargés spécifiquement de pallier les absences de leurs collègues du second degré public] on the long term ?” Brendan asks. Another risk, according to him: worsening the loss of attractiveness of the profession. “By producing different working conditions within the same team, the pact will cause people to flee”he judges.
Women face inequalities
In his college in Seine-Saint-Denis, Rémi is relieved “having a Close team”. “I have colleagues in other establishments who are already reporting a division between ‘the pacts’ and ‘the non-pacts'”, relates this physics-chemistry professor. For the first time in three years in the business, he is surprised to hear “talk about money” during educational meetings. “OWe are tending towards an American-style system where we favor paying teachers more, under consideration. PFor me, it’s the death of our profession, it’s privatizing it”regrets Rémi.
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But in the missions proposed by the pact, some were also already carried out by teachers. “All the work on orientation and discovery of careers is the role of the head teacher. We are afraid that his role will disappear over time”, anticipates Christine, teacher at the vocational agricultural high school in Oloron-Sainte-Marie (Pyrénées-Atlantiques). She adds that “the pact will not solve all the support problems” students with disabilities. In his establishment, at least 80 out of 192 are identified as students with special needs. According to her, instructions were given in her high school to first provide replacement “bricks” before others.
The pact’s final sticking point: according to the unions, it risks increasing salary inequalities between women and men. According to a recent ministry document consulted by franceinfo, 49.4% of eligible men were already doing two annual overtime hours (HSA) or more at the start of the 2021 school year compared to 42.1% of women. “On the few pacts signed today, men are in the majority”attests Maud Valegeas.
“Women in fact have more constraints linked to inequalities in domestic work. Being on call is more difficult.”
Maud Valegeas, federal co-secretary of SUD Educationat franceinfo
“VS“is against all the declarations on equality made by the Prime Minister”, also believes Sophie Vénétitay. At the Authie high school, Brendan affirms, after having surveyed his head of school, that no woman has signed the pact.
The president’s commitments in danger?
The fact remains that if the objective of 30% signatures is not achieved, certain promises from the executive and the new features of the start of the school year will have little chance of materializing in schools. Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly assured that there would be “a teacher in front of each class”. However, this commitment is conditioned, in part, by adherence to the short-term replacement “brick” of the pact.
“The promise cannot be kept. The teachers particularly do not want to commit to this mission.”
Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of the Snes-FSU unionat franceinfo
While the “Homework Done” system must be generalized to all sixth grade students, where previously it was only intended for the most difficult students, it will also take resources to guarantee these sessions. A mission included in the pact, “little taken” for the moment, according to Sophie Vénétitay.
Another big project this fall: the reform of the vocational high school. Like the care of students on the verge of dropping out, “eleven of the fifteen missions proposed in the pact at the vocational high school support the deployment of the reform”estimates Sigrid Gérardin, general secretary of Snuep-FSU, in The world. In a logic opposite to that of replacements, she believes that many teachers in the professional sector could engage in the missions of the pact, out of guilt, in order to “that the devices exist” for their students.