At the time of the 5th wave, which foreshadows increased replacement difficulties in National Education, the Court of Auditors publishes, on December 2, a report on "the management of teacher absences".
The Sages point to the insufficiency of the tools of the National Education to measure precisely the phenomenon, and its incapacity, in fact, to ensure a fine management.
But above all, the magistrates argue that a large part of absences "
comes from the very functioning of national education
", in particular with compulsory continuing training which encroaches on teaching hours.
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In primary school, the replacement of absent teachers is guaranteed at 80%. In college and high school, this rate even reaches 96%, but only for "long absences" (over 15 days). Because short absences represent 2.5 million hours, of which only 500,000 are replaced, i.e. a fifth ... Slightly degraded figures compared to 2017, the date of a previous Court report on the subject, with similar findings. A major change, however, in five years: families accept this situation less and less, scalded by the health crisis which has highlighted the school's difficulties in ensuring "pedagogical continuity" and brings up the subject of " dropout teachers ”. These families "
no longer hesitate to engage the responsibility of the State before the courts for lack of continuity of the public service of education ”
, affirms the Court of Auditors.
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As in 2017, it is the weight of absences linked to the very functioning of the education system that appears to be the most inexcusable from the point of view of public opinion. They represent two thirds of absences, against a third which are related to health or family problems. What are they due to? The early closure of schools due to exams, exam juries, optional school trips and trips, but above all to the continuing training of secondary school teachers which, unlike that of primary school teachers, takes place mainly on the teaching time.
A habit that is difficult to break. The court recalls that the teachers' service obligations, calculated since 1950 on a weekly basis, were for a long time limited to teaching assignments only. The decree of August 2014 extended these obligations to preparatory work, student monitoring, guidance, but without being the subject of a quantified hourly definition. The Wise Men propose that these other missions be finally quantified and that continuing education, compulsory since 2019, is included.
They recall in passing that the annual working time of teachers varies from 540 hours for an aggregate to 972 for a school teacher, where the time owed by a civil servant is set at 1607 hours. What to leave "
sufficient time slots so that absences due to the institution are not charged to the teaching time
"
,
they assert. But "
a large number of teachers have shown themselves to be unfavorable to training courses which are predominantly outside of teaching time
", they add.
In total, the court estimates that these absences having “
an institutional cause
” represent more than a third of the cost of the absences of the teachers (4 billion euros). These short absences are all the more problematic since it is difficult to organize the replacement. The Sages recommend on this "
a strengthening of the prerogatives of school heads, by authorizing them to draw from the annual contingent of replacement hours, included in the service obligations of teachers
".
Faced with the rigidities of a work system organized on a weekly basis, the Court of Auditors reiterates, as usual, its recommendation to “
annualize
” the working time of teachers, but also to develop their “
bivalence
” (l teaching of two disciplines). Two subjects that are still taboo as they raise criticism from the teaching world.
Through this report, the Court of Auditors recommends, basically, that teachers work more, outside of their only teaching time quantified.
But in an organized and fair framework.
During the health crisis, "
the differences between some teachers extremely mobilized and not counting their hours and others who did not know how to maintain the link with their students appeared starkly
", she observes.
Beyond the Covid, she believes that "
the intensity of the work
" must be "
valued
" and its "
insufficiency
", "
sanctioned
".
Illusory?
