The reform of vocational high schools promises to be one of the first measures of a more global dismantling of education. On October 18, the workers of these high schools go on strike with the aim of frustrating the government’s plans. It’s urgent.
On October 18, 18 trade unions plus one (for its part the CFDT) called a strike in defense of the professional high schools and against the reform projects of the so-called “professional path”. It is historic! This notice had not existed since the strike at the beginning of 2000. This had discarded a project for the annualization of working hours and imposed that teachers of professional high schools (PLP) of professional disciplines were 23 hours ahead of the students have the same status as general subject PLPs that were at 6pm in front of students. This strike had mobilized tens of thousands of PLPs out of 60,000, with dozens of LPs on strike and a national demonstration in Paris. This strike had overflowed the LP in 1st grade from schools in the priority education areas of Gard and Hérault, then in 2nd grade for a general movement of Education against Minister Allègre who then claimed to “degrease the mammoth” , namely the National Education in its terms.
The students of the popular neighborhoods are not meat to be slaughtered
Mobilization on a comparable scale will be needed to put an end to plans to accelerate the dismantling of the public education service. Projects that begin with the liquidation of LPs. Because this new reform of the professional path against the rights of young people to access to education and against the very profession of professional high school teacher would in fact lead to the transformation of vocational high schools into training centers where the voice of the bosses would be predominant.
This project envisages introducing businesses to schools starting from the fifth grade, under the pretext of introducing young people to the professions. Obviously, this implies, particularly in working class neighborhoods, that the “choice offered” to children would be the range of occupations in tension in the “occupational area”. The occupations of the interpreters as a priority, it goes without saying, with then the path traced to the training centers.
Teachers transformed into employees at the orders of companies
The meaning of this new reform is to consider the training of future workers as the rigorous adaptation of these young people (increasingly young) to the needs of businesses. Its goal is to provide the keys of professional high school to employers. At this stage, only the guidelines are known – except for the application from the beginning of the 2023 academic year of a 50% increase in the duration of on-the-job training periods (PFMP) which will increase from 22 to 33 weeks – but they are all convergent: redefining the training map according to the needs of the economic area (eliminating sectors that do not have enough), in a context in which there is no talk of planning to satisfy the needs of the population.
It means nothing more than responding to the wishes of business leaders. Giving the floor to business managers for the organization of teaching schedules and their contents means transforming teachers into employees of these companies and no longer officials of National Education. And of course we can trust that they have an opinion, in addition to the organization of the school timetable, and that they want to ban subjects, such as the history of the labor movement (which already tends to be supplanted by the history of the company), or weigh on the programs of law. cheap … and impose others.
Fight for a public education service
Wanting to continue teaching critical thinking, to develop the autonomy of reflection and its expression, but also the autonomy linked to the mastery of professional skills, this means undertaking the practical exercise of challenging projects, from the strike and in the streets from October. 18! With the aim of starting a movement of employees, students and their families in defense of a true public education service and asking for the means to make it work.
