This Monday morning, Julia's alarm clock, in second class in a high school in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, will ring an hour later than usual.
Forget the stress of the bag to buckle at the last minute and the breakfast to swallow in fourth gear: the teenager will not have class at 8 o'clock, as initially planned in her diary, but a "video" meeting at 11 am for a course in physics and chemistry, after more than two weeks of break.
Like nearly 5.7 million high school and college students, the young Parisian begins her third term away from her "chest", behind the screen of her computer, before a partial return to class from next week. “We risk again having a peak of connections between 9 am and 10 am and we wonder if the computer pipes will be sufficiently well sized this time, wonders Philippe Vincent, principal in Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du -Rhône) and secretary general of SNPDEN, the union of school leaders, in reference to the bugs that punctuated the week of distance learning, just before the break. Class in situ, we master. But here, we are a prisoner of technology. "
“Between the Covid and home lessons, many of us have the impression that we haven't made much progress for a year and that the pace of learning has slowed down,” sighs Julia, the Parisian high school student.
“The computer bugs at the end of March also caused a lot of bitterness, disappointment and anger among the teaching teams,” notes Philippe Vincent.
"We will really have to work on the vaccination of teenagers"
In kindergarten and elementary school, of which some 6.5 million students will be back in class on Monday, the fear of Covid-19 is emerging.
"Some measures have been announced to avoid mixing and prevent contamination, but there are huge holes in the racket," said Guislaine David, spokesperson for SnuiPP, the main teachers' union.
First there is the weak link in the canteen
where the children take off the mask and the fact that not all teachers can get the vaccine yet.
"
"The government does not anticipate," grumbles Jean-Paul Hamon, the honorary president of the federation of doctors of France.
“Why not provide
individual
boxes
and lunches in the courtyard?
»Asks the general practitioner.
And if a case now leads to the closure of a class, where to isolate the child carrying the virus?
“We should think of holiday centers with vaccinated staff to prevent them from infecting their families.
"
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Doesn't this return to class run the risk of causing an epidemic rebound when there are still 30,000 new infections per day? “This is the danger, recognizes Dominique Salmon-Céron, infectious disease specialist at the Hôtel-Dieu, in Paris. We are still on a high plateau. I fear that this return to school will be precipitated. “For the pediatrician, Robert Cohen, it is not for the children of nursery, nursery and elementary school since at these ages, they contaminate themselves very little. "If we apply the protocols, there should be no problems," says the specialist.
A risk which, according to him, could have been further limited by the installation of CO2 sensors, as is now the case in some of the Parisian schools. These devices make it possible to know whether a classroom is sufficiently ventilated. As for older, college and high school students, "the risk is significantly greater," admits the pediatrician. How to avoid clusters as much as possible? "We will really have to work on the vaccination of teenagers before September," he warns. This is the only way to reopen schools with confidence. "
