No more REP-rated schools and colleges? The government wants to reform the policy ofeducation priority by rethinking the resources allocated to institutions in difficulty, at the risk of leaving many disadvantaged groups aside, regretted specialists in the sector.
The Secretary of State in charge of Priority Education Nathalie Elimas announced Monday that the map of schools and colleges labeled “Priority Education Network” would soon be reviewed.
An experiment in three academies
For forty years, successive governments have relied on this policy to help establishments located in socially disadvantaged areas. It concentrates resources (around 2 billion euros) for the benefit of 20% of students in more than 1,000 networks bringing together colleges and schools, including 350 in reinforced priority education (REP +).
“Today, we are in the map – and we have the means – or we are not there”, explained Nathalie Elimas to Parisian . “We realized that this fixed system creates threshold effects and leaves structures by the wayside”.
To allow more “Flexibility”, the government will launch an experiment by signing three-year contracts between the school or establishment and the rectorate, with a “Review clause to extend them if necessary”. Clearly, the establishments benefiting from state aid will no longer be designated at the national but local level.
The experimentation will concern from next September the academies of Lille, Marseille and Nantes.
“Holes in the racket”
“We are not touching establishments with the REP + label and for the year 2021, the REP card” do not move, assures Nathalie Elimas.
This policy change partly takes up the recommendations of the report by the academic Pierre Mathiot and the Inspector General Ariane Azéma, made a year ago to the Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer.
“Until now, there were holes in the racket with establishments classified REP which should not have been and, conversely, establishments wrongly excluded from this policy”, says Pierre Mathiot, who approves a “Finer management” of the device.
However, will this reform make it possible to reverse the trend and reduce educational inequalities linked to social difficulties?
Nothing is less certain, according to Jean-Yves Rochex, professor emeritus at the University of Paris 8, specialist in the subject.
“These announcements are very worrying because they show that the ministry is no longer making this issue a priority”, he says. “What looms in the long term is a policy of piloting establishments according to their results, on an Anglo-Saxon model, ie the end of the public service of priority education”.
If the current policy is working less well than hoped, “It is because we did not put enough resources into it”, according to him. “A student from beautiful neighborhoods continues to cost more than a student from a city in Seine-Saint-Denis”.
What tools for teachers?
Nathalie Elimas also announced on Monday the creation of a “Quick help desk”, an online homework assistance service for teachers from different disciplines.
“It is for the moment the only concrete measure”, notes Marc Bablet, former head of priority education at the ministry from 2013 to 2018. “This is about supporting ad hoc, individual difficulties, but the problems encountered by children in disadvantaged neighborhoods are much more structural; that’s not how we’re going to solve them ”.
To reduce educational inequalities, Jean-Michel Blanquer has implemented since his arrival in government a campaign promise from Emmanuel Macron: to split the classes of CP, CE1 and large sections of kindergarten in REP and REP +.
An initiative widely approved in the field, but once again deemed insufficient by some: “At the same time, we should have provided more support for teachers, more training and more teamwork”, deplores Marc Bablet.
An observation shared by Jean-Yves Rochex: “Duplicating classes is not enough if teachers are not sufficiently equipped to analyze or deal with the social difficulties of their students”.
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