To replace absent teachers, retirees called to the rescue

Schools are looking for retired teachers.

Here is the bottle in the sea launched a few days ago by the National Education, in several departments.

While some classes, all levels combined, have not had teachers for weeks, due to an unreplaced absence, the education authorities are appealing to the veterans.

For example in Seine-et-Marne, where the Department of Departmental Services for National Education (DSDEN) sent an email to several retired teachers, as well as in Eure, where they received a call. bit desperate.

Among them, Christophe, 63, who left his school in Les Andelys last year.

“I have been retired for a year, someone from the DSDEN called me - I no longer remember his function.

He explained to me that he was sorely lacking in manpower to compensate for absences, then asked me directly if I was ready to make replacements, ”explains the young retiree.

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He cuts the call short: “I immediately closed the door, telling him that teaching under Covid was hell.

The protocols that change every week, the compulsory mask, or the inability to leave school, are not bearable conditions for me, ”explains Christophe.

At the other end of the line, the man asks him if it is a "final not".

"Yes", replies Christophe, who knows other former colleagues contacted, but none who accepted.

"Pieces of string"

In the email sent to retired teachers from Seine-et-Marne, the reasons for this request are specified. "The health situation strongly impacts our ability to ensure the continuity of the public education service", it is written, before evoking "the extent of the department, the difficulty of access to certain rural areas, the large number of small schools, are just as many problems to which must be added the conditions imposed by the health protocol and which do not facilitate the recruitment of contractual staff ”.

"We are not currently able to ensure the presence of a teacher in each class of the department", continues the DSDEN.

Remuneration is obviously foreseen, but not specified.

Mathilde Marnière, spokesperson for Snuipp-FSU for the Eure, believes that the authorities are in such need that "everything is good to take for a part-time or a replacement".

In this department, 50 classes had a teacher not replaced, only in the primary, according to a count of the previous week.

"There is an emergency, launches the school teacher.

But it is not with pieces of string that we are going to resolve the situation.

"