“We must not take away credit and legitimacy from a teacher” with the establishment of educational support units, warns the SE-Unsa union

“We absolutely must not take away credit, legitimacy or solidity from a teacher”, warned Thursday March 14 at the microphone of France Inter Élisabeth Allain-Moreno, general secretary of the SE-Unsa union, while the Prime Minister announced the future establishment of educational support units to support teachers who wish it. In an interview with AFP on Wednesday, Gabriel Attal specified that these cells would be reachable “by teachers who apprehend a teaching sequence, who face resistance, even protests”. Several solutions are possible, such as the intervention of a “referent teacher to give advice, the physical presence of non-teaching staff in the class, or the physical presence of trained staff, for example part of the ‘values ​​of the Republic’ academic teams”.

The SE-Unsa union warns that “it is not because we are going to add an adult to a class or an establishment that we will resolve all the difficulties”. Its general secretary explains that everything depends “of the added adult, their skills to support, their training and their role”. “Having someone extra in a class can sometimes add more difficulties than remove them”she adds.

Élisabeth Allain-Moreno thinks that we must be careful with this measure, fearing that it will take away “credit” to the accompanied teacher. She considers in fact that when “there is an attack, or a questioning of the teaching by the teacher, this also means that there is a questioning of his expertise, of his abilities to treat the programs objectively”. “We should not accentuate a difficulty where it is already very important”she warns.