Teachers have approximately the same annual average of days of absence as all workers in the private sector. In private education, however, this average is slightly lower.
An eventful start to the year for the new Minister of National Education. Barely named, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra found herself at the heart of a controversy over the schooling of her children in the ultraconservative private establishment Stanislas, in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. A choice that the minister defended by denouncing the absences of unreplaced teachers in public schools and which has revived the debate around supposed absenteeism among public teachers. Wednesday January 17, and Tuesday during a visit in the Parisian public school where her eldest son was initially educated, she apologized to the teachers she was able to “hurt” Or “to hit”. What is actually happening with this issue of teacher absenteeism? Franceinfo looked into the question.
According to the 2023 report from the Directorate General of Administration and Civil Service (DGAFP) on the state of the civil service (PDF), the average number of days of absence for health reasons during the year 2022 is approximately the same for teachers and private sector employees. Teachers were absent on average 11.6 days in 2022, compared to 11.7 days for private sector employees. Teachers are even absent less often than all public sector employees (14.5 days on average in 2022).
On the other hand, according to the latest statistical overview of school education personnel 2022-2023, published by the Department of Evaluation, Foresight and Performance (DEPP), there is a more marked difference between public and private teachers. In the 2021-2022 school year, 52% of public teachers took at least one leave for health reasons, compared to 45% of private secondary school teachers under contract. As for the average annual duration of leave for health reasons, it is 18.9 days for public teachers, compared to 15.2 in the private sector. In a 2021 report, the Court of Auditors added that teachers working in the priority education network “take more leave for health reasons”. They are on average absent 1.2 days more per year. However, as a reminder, only public education is concerned by priority education.
Millions of teaching hours lost
The supposed, and often criticized, “absenteeism” of teachers therefore seems unfounded. Their absences are, however, more visible and more problematic than in other sectors, because when a teacher is absent in front of his class, 20 to 30 students find themselves left behind. Which makes the question of their replacement central. In December 2022, Pap Ndiaye, then Minister of Education, estimated in an article published by the world that 15.4 million hours of teaching were lost in secondary education in 2020-2021 due to “the inability of the system to replace absent teachers”. Asked by The worldthe Ministry of Education specified that this figure, calculated by the DEPP, represented 8.8% of the total hours of teaching provided.
In its 2021 reportthe Court of Auditors estimates that over the 2018-2019 school year, nearly 2.5 million hours short-term absences of teachers have been recorded in secondary education. Only “519,100 hours were replaced, representing a replacement rate of 20.91%”. However, the Court of Auditors notes that two thirds of teacher absences come from “of the very functioning of the education system” and only a third of individual reasons. “Certain activities, such as continuing education, participation in juries or the organization of exams or competitions, educational meetings, take place during school time and cause students to be absent from their teacher”, says the Court of Auditors. It therefore frequently happens that a teacher is absent in front of his students, without being absent at work.
Short-term absences rarely replaced
These lost, unreplaced lesson hours are not the result of repeated absences from teachers for weeks, but on the contrary short-term stops. They thus represent “more than 80% of absences not covered”because the unpredictability of these short absences, and the lack of “structured replacement system in the second degree” to deal with it make it difficult to replace teachers, points out the report from the Court of Auditors. Nearly half of absences are not replaced “have a duration of less than or equal to two days and three quarters, a duration of less than or equal to five days”.
In secondary education, public or private, the same rule applies. If a teacher’s absence is less than 15 days, then his replacement is the responsibility of the head of the establishment, who must find volunteers from his teaching team to carry out a replacement. Beyond 15 days of absence, on the other hand, it is the rectorate which has the obligation to replace the absent professor. However, according to the report of the Court of Auditors, 4% of teacher absences of more than 15 days are not replaced. In total, “10% of lesson hours were ‘lost’ during the 2018-2019 school year“, estimates the Court of Auditors.
“This 15-day totem must be lowered”, claims Grégoire Ensel, national president of the Federation of Parent Teacher Councils (FCPE). The latter believes that the real problem does not lie in the supposed “absenteeism” of teachers, but rather in the lack of replacement. “What we denounce above all is the non-replacement. Teachers have the right to be sick, to have children, etc.”he says.
A lack of replacement teachers
According to Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU and SES professor, the heart of the problem lies in the lack of attractiveness of the teaching profession. “We are in a situation of shortage of teachers. We simply lack replacements”she explains. An analysis shared by the Court of Auditors, which points out the problem of seeing, from the start of the school year, replacement teachers assigned to vacant positions, which “reduces the ‘pool’ of replacements for absences during the year”.
In 2023, according to ministry figures, more than 3,100 teaching positions were not filled in public teaching competitions, out of more than 23,800 open positions. So many positions to fill thanks to the use of contract workers, out-of-competition hiring or even replacement teachers. In the private education competitions (Cafep), on the other hand, in 2023, 1,820 candidates were accepted for a total of 1,965 contracts offered, according to statistical data from the Ministry of National Education, i.e. a rate of 93% positions filled.
Among the public, the government is banking on the Teacher Pact to resolve the problem of replacements. This system, set up by Pap Ndiaye, aims to mobilize teachers to work paid overtime to replace absent colleagues. But the system is strongly criticized by teaching unions. “It’s a way of making people believe that the hours are replaced, but it’s not true”, believes Sophie Vénétitay. According to the latter, replacements can thus be provided by teachers who do not teach the same subject or do not know the students. “I have seen the case of an hour of maths replaced by an hour of Chinese, for a class that does not teach Chinese…”she reports as an example.