MISTREATED TEACHERS, ADMINISTRATIVE CHAOS : THE WRECKAGE OF NATIONAL EDUCATION | M6 | Zone Interdite

France is beating records for injustice when it comes to schooling.

Every year, tens of thousands of teaching hours are lost due to teacher absenteeism. Whether in the provinces or in the cities, the situation is the same: public schools are abandoned. Absenteeism among students and teachers, rampant verbal and physical violence, unhygienic premises? All these ills are increasingly contributing to a two-tier school system.

Faced with this shortage, some education authorities are recruiting untrained, unqualified contract teachers, some of whom learn their trade from Internet tutorials. Classes are also given remotely, via videoconferencing, to several secondary school classes scattered all over France. At the same time, some permanent replacement teachers have been waiting for a position for months, and are paid to do nothing.

From Marseille to Nord-Pas-de-Calais, via the Paris suburbs, we visited these forgotten schools, where teachers spend more time managing emergencies than teaching.

We met parents who have decided to fight to improve their children’s schooling. They’ve taken to the streets, occupying schools to force the Inspection académique to replace absent teachers.

Immersion at the heart of the dysfunctions of the French education system.