According to the education unions, the Rectorate administration takes a very mathematical approach to the management of the Guadeloupe Academy. Taking into account the expected decline in the number of pupils at the beginning of the next school year, the reduction of 107 positions was announced, of which 55 were in secondary education. This year, teachers again advocate quality education, taking into account local specificities, be it in terms of the living standards of families, the archipelago of the territory or even the decline in the number of junior, middle and high school students.
Nadine Fadel, with Lydia Quérin and Olivier Duflo • Published on December 26, 2023 at 7:11 p.m., updated on December 26, 2023 at 7:38 p.m.
Information that, like every year, scares the staff of the National Education: In the next school year, in September 2024, there will be further cuts in teaching positions within the academy.
And like every year, the Rectorate justifies this decision with the decline in student numbers, both at primary and secondary level.
Nevertheless, in its press release, the administration is pleased with “the positive development of supervision rates over ten years.”
While the teaching unions continue to demand more staff within the Guadeloupe Academy, the opposite phenomenon is observed year after year.
The decline in the number of students in the archipelago's institutions is the rectorate's recurring argument to justify the cuts in staff.
In a decade, the academic region will see a decline in public school enrollment of more than 20,000 students, or more than a fifth, with a decline of 25% in primary education and 16.5% in secondary education.
Press release from the Guadeloupe academic region
This means that at the start of the 2024 school year we are talking about a total of 1,246 fewer students, including 502 students and 744 middle and high school students.
This number inevitably influences the provision of teaching materials.
This calculation is denounced by the trade unions, who prefer to talk about the necessary quality of education rather than just numbers.
We cannot base vacancies solely on demographics when we know that we are in a department with very complicated situations: more than 40% of family units are below the poverty line, 98% of our institutions should have had priority education, 30 % of our young people leave the education system without a qualification (…). On the contrary, we must take advantage of the decline in student numbers to equip primary schools with split classes in large sections in Cp and CE1, but also so that classes do not have more than 24 students, especially in middle school.
Eddy Ségur, Secretary General of the FSU Guadeloupe
For the teacher representatives, it is about fighting against the decline in academic standards and against academic failure at the university.
The National Education Administration's Social Services Committee met Thursday, Dec. 21, to decide on resources allocated to public schools at the start of the next school year.
In the 1st degree (kindergartens and primary schools), Guadeloupe will lose 52 places.
In fact, the demographic decline (up to 1.4%) should have led to the loss of 69 apprenticeships. However, to enable work by level groups, 17 positions are allocated to the area.
Taking into account the need for differentiated working groups does not satisfy the FSU; For the union, this measure must be extended to the entire territory.
If we had put the entire academy into priority education, almost 200 jobs would have had to be created, it would have been a long time since we could have split the classes, and it would have been a long time since we could have fought against school failure. We cannot settle for crumbs at our Archipelago Academy, also based in Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy! We should have had a lot more resources!
Eddy Ségur, Secretary General of the FSU Guadeloupe
In the second degree (middle and high schools), where the student loss is 1.9%, The archipelago has to forego 55 jobsincluding 5 full-time equivalents in annual overtime (ETP HSA).
This is very bad news! Especially when the Education Minister Mr Attal* announces that we need to carry out a knowledge shock to ensure that students are better looked after, don't we have to cut 107 jobs again this year, while? Last year we had to cut 131 jobs. It is the continuation of this bleeding on our territory.
Teddy Tancons, academic secretary of SNCL Guadeloupe
*ALSO READ: In 2024, “a third of the newly created jobs” for secondary school teachers will take place abroad, assures Gabriel Attal – December 21, 2023.
Our academy is always one of the top 3 best looked after academies.
Press release from the Guadeloupe academic region
The SNCL union disagrees on this point.
This is an average value. Of course, if we weigh the overcrowded classes that we can have in Guadeloupe and the very small number that we can find in Les Saintes and La Désirade, the average says that we have a good staff ratio. But that is not the reality on the ground.
Teddy Tancons, academic secretary of SNCL Guadeloupe
As a reminder, last September all students in grades CP, CE1, CM1, 6ᵉ and 4ᵉ took a French and mathematics test to measure their academic level. Young foreign residents, including Guadeloupeans, lag significantly behind those in France.