Elisabeth Borne promised Friday to “change methods” on the thorny issue of class closures in rural areas, with more anticipation, during a trip focused on education, one of the government’s priorities to get out of the pension crisis. During this trip to Nièvre, the Prime Minister addressed “a sensitive point in rural areas, the question of class closures”, for which she wants “a change of method”.
Bring “concrete answers” on education
“Today, they are announced a few months in advance. We want to be able to anticipate, share transparently with elected officials and have an approach over several years, in order to find suitable answers”, she specified. This is the Prime Minister’s first trip to the region for almost two months, intended to highlight education, on which the executive wants to provide “concrete answers”, as on health and ecology, within the framework of the roadmap entrusted to it by the President.
Accompanied by the Minister of Education Pap Ndiaye and the Minister Delegate for Rurality Dominique Faure, Elisabeth Borne discussed with the pupils and teaching teams of the Albert-Camus primary school and the Jean-Rostand college in La Machine “on issues of schooling and equal opportunities in rural areas”. She attended an English course in co-teaching between college and school teachers at the Jean-Rostand college, before participating in Nevers on the municipal council for children (8-13 years old) and the municipal council for juniors (14 -17 years), who informed him of their “proposals to improve the public service of education”.
About 150 people demonstrated near the Ducal Palace in Nevers, where Elisabeth Borne was to go. “They want to occupy the field on other themes and say that the government has moved on,” regretted Carole Douspis, of the CGT de la Nièvre, to AFP.
At the start of the school year, “systematic replacements” for absent teachers
Elisabeth Borne again assured the press that the government “is committed to ensuring that from the start of the school year, there can be systematic replacements, including for short-term absences”. She also mentioned “the generalization of rural educational territories (TER), doubling them from next year”. Objective: 300 within 3 years, according to those around him.
Created on an experimental basis in the spring of 2021, rural educational territories bring together all the actors (State, communities and associations) around the child to contribute to his career and his success. According to data from the Ministry of National Education, there are currently “65 TER, in 10 academies and 40 departments, with 92 colleges and 665 schools”.
Finally, she said she would like the development of boarding schools in the most isolated high schools, “so that young people are not constrained in the choice of their high school by geographical distance and therefore that they can access the courses they want”. .