On 1 and 6 February 2024, education personnel were called upon to strike in order to denounce the government’s reforms and its disregard for them.
The deterioration of working conditions, the lack of wage reclamation, the accumulated counter-reforms and the “Clash of Knowledge” which will allocate resources to inept schemes such as level groups, have prompted national education personnel to strike and demonstrate on 1 and 6 February 2024. The inter-union has launched a petition ‘Knowledg’s shock is no’. In a statement on 4 February, the trade unions called for a long-term action plan for public schools.
A Pastist Vision of the School
This policy is illustrated by the desire to establish the unique holding and generalization of the United Nations system (Universal National Service). Moreover, the words of Minister Amélie Oudéa Castera, denigrating the Public School and its staff, show how despised the national education is by the government and the President of the Republic.
In this context, the CGT Éducation calls on staff to meet to establish demands for their schools, institutions and services to discuss the continuation of the strike to satisfy them.
After the strikes of 1 and 6 February, the CGT Educ’action, in inter-union, calls on the staff to make this week a week of action in education.
The CGT Éduc’action supports all local mobilizations decided by staff in the coming weeks and call on staff to participate massively in the March 8 feminist strike and protests. As a matter of gender equality, the IRES study calculated that in order to eliminate the wage gap, the profession of school teacher should be upgraded by 37% (see study here)
The Education CGT calls for:
- the abandonment of the “Clash of Knowledge”,
- allocation of dedicated hours to groups of levels at the decline in staff per class;
- the abandonment of the Pact in favour of unconditional wage increase, the reform of the LP and national evaluations;
- the abandonment of the planned abolitions of posts this year, an increase in the number of staff in the total number of staff, an increase in the number of staff in the region;
- a category B status for ESHS.
To save the public service of the National Education Service, the CGT called for a strike in the civil service on 19 March 2024.
Together we say “NO” to the “Clash of Knowledge”
The ministry insists on putting in place the conservative and pastist project of the “knowledge shock” presented a few months ago by Gabriel Attal, now Prime Minister. This project is harmful to the School, for students and for staff. Instead of curing its ills, he renounces seeing them and will increase them
At the appeal of the trade union organizations FSU, UNSA, FO, Sgen-CFDT, CGT Educ’Action and South, we are opposed to this plan, which:
- Socially sorts pupils by organizing mathematics and French courses in groups of levels, which inevitably accentuates educational inequalities;
- challenges the equal right of access to further education for all pupils, the founding principle of the Public School, by conditioning direct access to high school by setting up pre-pa-second classes in LGT or LP for pupils admitted to the second grade but failing the national diploma of the patent instead of providing all the necessary means for the success of pupils;
- Disorganises colleges by reorienting the use of the margin, further accentuating inequalities, deteriorating timetables and reducing or eliminating disciplinary teaching, duplication or options;
- will significantly degrade working conditions by the large number of posts and the overload of the classes;
- challenges pedagogical freedom with imposed methods, textbooks and common progressions;
- teachers are the teachers of their professional expertise, in particular by imposing standardised national evaluations at all levels.
We are denouncing the foundations of this policy to the detriment of the most vulnerable and socially disadvantaged students.