Staff, canteen, priority education ... The challenges of the 2021 academic year for Catholic education

Three weeks after the return of the students and teachers to their establishments for a new school year, the general secretariat of Catholic education organized its back-to-school press conference at its premises in rue Saint-Jacques (5th arrondissement of Paris) Thursday September 23.

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Secretary General Philippe Delorme first welcomed a

"recovery [which] took place under good conditions"

, despite the

"fragile health context"

linked to Covid-19 which continues to be rife and which has resulted in

"to this day »

The closure of nearly 420 primary school classes.

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After taking stock of the numbers, Philippe Delorme developed several essential points for the general secretariat of Catholic education.

Among these, secularism, Parcoursup, school canteens, priority education, apprenticeship, recruitment and upgrading of teachers ...

• Stable workforce

2,090,120 children entered French Catholic education this year: 829,845 in the first degree, 1,215,378 in the second degree and 44,897 in agricultural education.

35,527 students are educated overseas (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana, Reunion, Mayotte, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon).

Read also 2021 school year: key figures from National Education

These numbers are stable compared to those at the start of the 2020 school year. Catholic education thus recorded a drop of 367 students. The drop in enrollment in primary education (- 7,102 children, i.e. - 0.85%) is almost offset by the increase in secondary education (+ 5,899, i.e. + 0.49%) and that of agricultural education ( + 836 students, i.e. + 2%).

"We can reasonably consider that this drop of 7,102 students corresponds to the general demographic decline in our country,"

said Philippe Delorme.

As last year, it is in the academies of Nantes, Rennes and Lille that Catholic education has its largest numbers: 267,355 students in the first, 239,098 in the second and 182,761 in the third.

On the “small thumbs” side, Mayotte has 203 students, only in secondary education, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon 392 students and Corsica 2463 students.

• Very expensive school canteens

On the subject of school catering, Philippe Delorme does not mince his words.

“For a family that chooses the Catholic School, it is not the contribution to the operating costs requested by our establishments that is discriminatory, but the ancillary costs and particularly those of the canteen.

[...] It is a brake for families. "

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Denouncing a

"shocking lack of equity"

between the public and the private sector, he recalls that

"if meal prices are low in public establishments, it is because communities grant subsidies, in the form of social assistance, to families ”

and that

“ very few communities ... offer the same help to our students ”

.

Result: glaring disparities between public and private.

Of the 9 euros that the meal of a public high school student in Île-de-France costs, families pay a maximum of only 4 euros, says the secretary general of Catholic education, who specifies that in the private sector

"the cost average meal is 6.5 euros ”

.

“It's a political choice.

It's unfair and discriminatory, ”he

insists.

• The deep end of priority education

New for this 2021 school year: Catholic education is now -

"finally"

, slips Philippe Delorme - associated with the priority education policy.

Six Catholic establishments have thus signed a local support contract (CLA) as part of the experiment implemented in three academies by the State Secretariat for Priority Education.

Read also Towards a priority education reform

This concerns the Saint-Joseph Viala school group and the Saint-Mauront college in Marseille, the Saint-Benoît school group in Le Mans, the Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle school group in Nantes, the Sainte-Marie La Salle college in Roubaix and the Sainte-Marie vocational high school in Bailleul.

"These contracts allocate additional resources - educational and financial - to establishments which meet the new criteria of priority education"

, welcomes the General Secretary of Catholic Education, who adds that

"axes have

been defined.

priorities ”

around cultural openness, remediation, work on emotions ...