Covid-19: recruiting retired teachers to replace those absent, the good idea that is slipping

“I won’t go, that’s for sure.” The gaze facing one of the paradisiacal beaches of the island of Guadeloupe, Patrick is sure of himself. Just a retired professor, he will not respond to the government’s call to replace teachers absent due to Covid-19. “The pandemic, I am not afraid of it. I am triple vaccinated and am extremely careful”, he sweeps to LCI, pointing on the contrary, a fed up. “We do not understand anything about the protocols. It is an impressive effort which has never been underlined by the ministry”, lashes out at the sixties.

And then there is the desire to take to the seas. “I also need to take a step back from the job, he emphasizes. I have spent 43 years in teaching and I have chosen my moment for my departure. It was saving. ”

For Christian, another of these retired teachers, it is on the contrary a question of health security. “I try to see as few people as possible and go back to a class, that’s not what I frankly call protecting yourself from the virus”, he blurted out at LCI, two years after his withdrawal. It will be a no for him too.

However, it is these young retirees, rather cautious, that the government has thought to alleviate the lack of staff in schools in times of pandemic. Each year, they are several thousand to drop the schoolbag: 18,153 in 2020, 16,803 in 2019, and 20,399 in 2017 according to figures from the Ministry of National Education. On Sunday, his minister Jean-Michel Blanquer called on these former teachers, like Patrick and Christian, to come “give a hand” during this fifth wave.

Tuesday morning on France Inter, same appeal from the foot of government spokesman Gabriel Attal. “We don’t want to close the schools, we want to maintain them as much as possible and do our best to find replacements”, he insists.

According to Jean-Michel Blanquer, 7% of teachers are currently absent, or 60,000 people, whether it is sick leave or impromptu childcare. Last month, the scientific council estimated “that at least” a third of the teachers would be unavailable by the end of January in the context of the Omicron surge. “I think we will reach this figure halfway through the month”, Advance Guislaine David, co-secretary general and spokesperson for the SNUipp teachers’ union, which has a majority in primary education. “Among the professors, we have absences never reached before.”

But since the start of the school year, problem: “there are not many people to offer themselves”, she laments to LCI, and even less to older people. “Retirees are not fooled. They are more fragile and even if they are vaccinated, they risk being contaminated, plants the co-secretary, who has in mind the contagiousness of the Omicron variant. Same concern on the side of the SE – Unsa union. “This proposal is unreasonable and goes beyond sanitary measures “, completes Elisabeth Allain-Moreno, national secretary of the union, also justifying the risk of falling ill.

The national secretary, requested by LCI, also wonders “how to find people who are going to want to commit for one, two or three months”. While acting “the will of the government” to seek solutions to the number of missing arms.

Before the Christmas holidays, some departments, such as Seine-et-Marne and Eure, had already made the bet of these retirees. “It was for a one-off request in the northeast of the sector”, explains the academy of Créteil which did not have many answers. “The appeal was not very convincing. One can imagine that the end of year celebrations did not help to mobilize people”, she justifies. Same story for Normandy. “We anticipated, we had some feedback, but the Christmas holidays slowed down the enthusiasm”, indicates the academic direction of the Eure.

And in the other departments? “There was not a plethora of people jostling in front of the schools”, summarizes Guislaine David. Only a few contract workers, far from retirement age, “could be recruited”. They are 75 for example in Seine-Maritime note France 3 and hardly a little more for the Academy of Paris, with 80 new professors.

The academy of Créteil, with more than a million students in its charge, however revived the appeal to the oldest in this re-entry in January. “Today we have an absence between 8 to 10% of the workforce”, she explains to us. Ditto for the Eure, where we rely on feedback from teachers over the water.

Contacted, the Ministry of National Education does not yet have figures concerning the figures of these replacements at the national level. For the latter, it is still too early to do the accounts. However, no question of withdrawing the appeal. Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer received the teaching unions this Thursday afternoon to discuss current health protocols.