“The children were standing on a chair”, when the contract workers called in for reinforcement in the schools are overwhelmed

It was a promise after the very popular strike of January 13 in National Education which demonstrated against changing health protocols: the ministry of Jean-Michel Blanquer announced a reinforcement of 3,300 contract workers in schools to deal with teacher absences.

Initially, this director of a Parisian school was happy to see two people arrive to replace sick colleagues, affected by Covid-19, but she was quickly disillusioned. “We intervened several times where the children were standing on a chair, throwing themselves on the ground on top of each other…“

These contract workers obviously have no experience in the profession: the director warns her superiors, the academic inspectorate, who sends educational advisers. But impossible to catch up with a whole teacher training. “They did not know the children’s programs. I have been teaching for over 20 years. I have never seen this”.

The atmosphere is usually warm in this dynamic school in a popular district of Paris. But seeing such a chaotic situation quickly sickens the other teachers.

“The person did not know that the call had to be made, did not know how to fill out a call book.”

A teacher

at franceinfo

“It’s also very humiliating for us, our profession, because it wouldn’t occur to anyone to put someone to replace a doctor if he’s not trained.” confides one of them.

The parents then mobilize: they write letters to alert the authorities, says this mother of a student.

“What are we waiting for our children? We expect a little more than just daycare. If the school takes our child, can keep them all day and we can go to work, we are happy. But in fact, we expect more. In terms of security, this is a problem. And that’s it, I hope we don’t have any drama.“

Faced with the difficulties, one of the two contract workers threw in the towel after two and a half days of school. Asked, the National Education services did not wish to answer our questions.