Education: Pap Ndiaye reduces the veil on social diversity

It was its “priority”, he who for months has been regularly criticized for not being visible enough, and sees all his ads taken over by Emmanuel Macron. Like on the upgrading of teachers Or the reform of vocational high schools. After being postponed many times, Pap Ndiaye was to announce his plan on social diversity this Thursday, with great fanfare. In the end, there is a risk of retaining the great vagueness rather than the substantive measures.

The promised announcements were finally reduced to an SMS, addressed to journalists at the end of the day, and a cryptic formula, after a day of great confusion, without explanation from the ministry on the reasons for such a reversal. An injunction from the Elysée to reduce the sails in the face of criticism from the right? umptions were rife in the educational community on this subject, which concentrates criticism from the left and the right.

A roadmap before the end of the year

“The Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye, today brought together the rectors to set them the objectives of increasing social diversity in public establishments by reducing the differences in social recruitment between establishments by 20% by to 2027.” The ministry refers to complex calculations, difficult to read for the general public.

The ministry recalls the already known toolbox, in which rectors can draw to “advance gender diversity”. They are invited to prepare their academic roadmap by the end of the year. And, “before the summer”, a “body for dialogue, consultation and management of social and school diversity, involving local authorities, representatives of establishments and parents of students” must be created.

The ministry must make public, next week, the protocol on the mix with private education, presented as the heart of the announcements. There is no question of reviving the school war, had declared the minister just like the general secretary of Catholic education, Philippe Delorme.

But the lack of announcements fuels heated debates. On the one hand, on the left, we insist on “the budget of private establishments under contract, financed up to 73% by the State and the local authorities”. The State achieves “substantial savings” thanks to the private sector under contract, counter-attacks Catholic education.

Modulate the prices of private establishments

In a document sent to the AEF Info agency, the General Secretariat of Catholic Education (SGEC) ensures that private education under contract thus allows “a saving of 9.48 billion for the public accounts”. A private primary school pupil under contract costs 3,120 euros against 6,910 euros for that of the public and, in the second degree, it is 5,544 euros on average against 10,409 euros for the public, according to the SGEC which recalls in particular that “local authorities pay [de l’argent] to finance school canteens” in public establishments.

In the future protocol, private education should commit to attracting more scholarship holders and adjusting its prices according to the parents’ income.