Pupils lose year from absent staff

ABSENT teachers cost a pupil a year’s missed education over the course of their school life, an inquiry by the country’s biggest parents group has found.

The Fédération des Conseils des Parents d'Elèves des Ecoles Publiques (FCPE) said that if a teacher was off sick then pupils were too often sent home or “into the streets” rather than a replacement teacher brought in.

It based its claims on a government report which revealed that 2.2 million teaching hours were lost each year in secondary schools because of teacher absence.

The FCPE adds that since September 2009 it has registered information from more than 20,000 parents who have reported hours of missed lessons because absent teachers were not replaced.

FCPE president Jean-Jacques Hazan said the effect on children’s education was widespread and that “the absence of lessons penalises all pupils, and in particular the most fragile among them, for whom the absence of teachers has the detrimental effect of disrupting their normal school rhythm”.

In a recent letter to Education Minister Luc Chatel he said if children were sent home that reinforced the risk of them distancing themselves from their schooling and dropping out. Mr Chatel responded to the FCPE’s claims by revealing plans for improvements to the system with schools gaining more control, rather than the rectorat (the education authority). At the moment, if a secondary school teacher is absent for less than a fortnight, a replacement is often not provided.

Mr Chatel said up to 20% of the pool of 50,000 supply teachers was being under-used and the system needed to be more flexible.

Schools will be given access to a list of newly-retired teachers and students who can provide a few days’ cover at a moment’s notice.

He also wants an absence to be reported and the teacher replaced as quickly as possible and that each school should have someone responsible for dealing with the situation.

Education authorities should be able to call on neighbouring authorities to get help in finding replacement supply teachers. The proposals are intended to be in place for the rentrée in September but ministry officials said that the timing was yet to be decided.

Teachers have held strikes this year in protest at plans to cut 16,000 jobs in September for budget reasons and the planned reform of the lycée which they say has been mishandled.