Will we run out of teachers at the start of the school year? This is the question that many families are asking themselves, as the school holidays begin. The Minister of National Education Pap Ndiaye repeated it, on France Inter Thursday July 7, “there will be a teacher in front of each class, in all the schools in France”. Except that the figures are rather worrying, all the positions to be filled have not found takers. An official confirmation from the Ministry of National Education itself.
How many vacancies are there?
In total, more than 4,000 positions remain vacant today, after the teacher competitions that have taken place in recent weeks. Nearly 20,000 new teachers are hired but this is not enough. This represents just over 80% of open positions. This is much less than in 2021, when the figure was 94%. The recruitment difficulties this year 2022 are unprecedented.
Where are the main teacher shortages?
All school levels are affected in the same proportions. The competitions did not fill up as much at the primary level, as in college and high school. But on the other hand, not all regions are in the same boat. Some are more attractive than others. Result, for the school, the lack of teachers is glaring in Ile-de-France especially in the departments outside Paris, where only a little more than half of the positions have been filled.
In secondary school, the situations are also different depending on the subject. There are no problems in history-geography, physical education and sports (EPS), or even Life and Earth Sciences (SVT). On the other hand, it really gets stuck in classics and German where half of the necessary recruitments could not be made. Other subjects are also in tension: physics-chemistry, modern letters and mathematics. On this last matter, we have talked about it a lot in recent months, but the ministry is in fact less worried than for others: the drop in vocations is recent and should not be too difficult to fill, assures the entourage of Pap Ndiaye.
How does the ministry intend to deal with these shortcomings?
The solution, for the ministry, essentially lies in one word: contractors. National Education wants to hire people who have not passed the competition, sorts of fixed-term contracts, who are not civil servants. Several academies have already organized recruitment days based on this model. The ministry ensures that there will be a particular effort on the training of these new recruits at the end of August, before the start of the school year. Cells will also be set up in each rectorate, to respond to the difficulties of establishments faced with absences.
If these figures are quite eloquent, the team of Pap Ndiaye ensures to be confident for the start of the school year. She affirms that this drop in recruitment was planned and recalls that measures are envisaged from the fall of 2022 in consultation with the unions, to improve the attractiveness of the profession, starting with salary increases.