Jean-Michel Blanquer has made it a pride and a book: during the pandemic, France has the least closed its schools, all levels combined.
An OECD report entitled "The state of the global education system, 18 months of pandemic" and published this Thursday confirms this.
What feed the record of the Minister of National Education for the presidential election.
Out of the forty countries analyzed between January 2020 and May 2021 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, France ranks 7th at all levels and despite a significant circulation of Covid-19.
Only 6 countries have closed schools less.
And among them, Norway and New Zealand, two countries that have known very few cases of Covid-19.
French nursery school and primary school children missed 29 days in 2020 and only 5 in 2021. Middle school students were deprived of lessons for 34 days in 2020 and only 10 in 2021. Finally, from January 2020 to May 2021, high schools French people interrupted their teaching for 49 days.
To maintain such a low closure rate, France preferred to reduce face-to-face gauges.
Part of the high school students - relatively small compared to other countries - were therefore sent home, but the lessons were kept online.
A strategy highlighted by the OECD.
It is mainly thanks to this that France systematically ranks at the head of the peloton.
This French vision of education during a pandemic did not emerge immediately.
Initially, most nations had the same reaction.
In mid-March 2020, the epidemic took hold.
Most schools are closing in all of the countries studied.
Then come summer vacation.
The urgency subsides.
Politics takes over.
No dictatorship of epidemiologists
Thus, at the start of the school year, the strategy for schools diverges depending on the government. Same thing in 2021. Some people favor reducing the risks associated with Covid-19. Denmark, Germany and Mexico, for example, have locked the doors of their high schools for more than 60 days this year, while the virus was circulating relatively little in their territory. While France, Belgium, Spain and the Swiss have notably decided to keep their establishments open or partially open, despite a stronger circulation of the virus. The OECD thus shows that the opening of schools is not governed by the "dictatorship of health and epidemiologists", as some claim, but by the preferences of States.
The OECD report also helps identify those who sacrificed education in the face of Covid-19.
Mexico has closed its schools 200 days since January 2020, at all levels.
This country has not practiced partial opening.
In other words, the closures were not accompanied by dematerialized monitoring.
Next come Poland and Costa Rica with more than 170 days missed.
Globally, the least developed countries come at the bottom of the ranking.
Maintaining as normal schooling as possible despite the risks of the coronavirus requires significant resources: in
2021, 75% of OECD countries increased their spending on education.
In 2020, 66% of the states included in the study had already increased their budgets to protect the education of their students.
It is especially high school students who have been deprived of school, underlines the OECD.
On average, high schools in the 40 countries studied interrupted their teaching for 101 days, between January 2020 and May 2021. This is 9 days more than in middle school, and 23 more than in primary.
The smallest preserved
Thus, the smallest were preserved.
Primarily for socio-economic reasons, according to the OECD survey.
States believe that “the first years in school are crucial”.
They determine the cognitive and emotional capacities of children.
Also, at this age, remote tracking is not possible.
Finally, keeping schools open also allows parents to return to work.
Yesterday, Unicef called for the reopening of schools all over the world, in a vast campaign on social networks.
According to the international organization, 17 countries keep their classes closed, and 39 others have only partially opened.
"A crisis that we will not ignore", warned Henrietta Fore, director general of Unicef.
For his part, Jean-Michel Blanquer repeats that his priority for this return has not changed: "open school objective", he chants.
If only 3,000 classes have been closed so far, according to the minister, this number is increasing exponentially.
“Open schools”, yes, but for how long?