“We must do better in terms of school maps, it is indisputable”, admits Pap Ndiaye

“We must do better in terms of school maps, it is undeniable”recognizes Friday, March 31 on franceinfo Pap Ndiaye, the Minister of Education and Youth, after the announcement of Elisabeth Borne on the “change of method” on the issue of class closures. The Prime Minister was traveling with the Minister of Education to a school in Nièvre, in the town of La Machine, to discuss “on the issues of schooling and equal opportunities in rural areas”.

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A change of method on the school map will take place “back to school 2024” : “We are going to consider the school map in a multi-annual way”, explains the minister. Rather than announcing class openings and closings in February and June, “which is quite brutal for the mayors who have been able to make investments”admits Pap Ndiaye, “we are going to think things over three years”For “exchange with the mayors, the prefects to see how we build the school map and avoid the annual psychodramas that we know”.

500,000 fewer students “over the entire five-year period”

The minister estimates that 1,500 classes will be closed and jobs cut this year. “It is primarily due to the fall in school enrollment”according to Pap Ndiaye. “We are going to lose nearly 90,000 students at the start of the 2023 school year”. “Over the entire five-year period, we will lose 500,000 students due to the drop in the birth rate in the 2000s and therefore we have to adapt to that.”

The Minister of Education also wishes to facilitate the transition between the first and second cycles. “We are going to double the rural educational territory networks at the start of the school year”. These networks, numbering 65 today, connect schools, colleges and high schools. Pap Ndiaye also announces more places in the boarding schools of excellence which welcome 11,000 students today in rural areas.