It is intended to be one of the flagship measures of the François Hollande presidency. The head of state and his education minister Vincent Peillon see the reform of the school calendar in France as one of the new government's key policies.
So it is perhaps little wonder that just as many local authorities have made it clear they want to delay the reforms, Peillon has gone out of his way to praise councillors and mayors for their work in supporting the country's schools. “I want to salute local councillors,” Peillon told Members of Parliament at the National Assembly last week. “Twenty-five percent of education spending in this country is done by local authorities.” The minister has also this week begun a series of meetings with local authority representatives.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
The reason for municipal opposition is that the changes to the school calendar – which include increasing the length of the school week from four to four-and-a-half days but cutting the length of the school day for pupils – have been scheduled for next year. Local mayors and councillors are not opposed to the reforms – many welcome them – but feel that it is impossible to prepare for them logistically and financially in such a short timeframe.
Last week the main representative body for France's mayors the Association des maires de France (AMF) urged for the changes to be put back for two years, arguing that bringing them in “for the new school year in 2013 would be too tight to allow communes to prepare properly”. Yet for Peillon to delay such a key measure for two years would be very embarrassing politically.
Much of the problem stems from the financial burden the changes will impose on councils. The reforms will create an extra four hours a week when pupils are under school supervision but not in class. The responsibility for providing the additional pastoral care needed for these four hours will fall on local councils. Town halls up and down the country have been doing their sums and have begun to sound the alarm over the cost implications.
In France's second city Lyon, for example, the city hall has put the additional expense of hiring staff at leisure centres to look after children who are not in class at 5 million euros. When grants from the national social security organisation the Caisse nationale d'allocations familiales (CNAF) are taken into account the final bill for the city is 900,000 euros. At a time when cash-strapped local authorities are in the process of fixing their budgets for next year, they are putting pressure on the state to face up to its responsibilities.
Yet despite the huge sums being talked about by the cities, it is clearly towns and villages, where extra-curricular activities are not well-developed, where the implementation of the reform will hit the hardest. “In little communes we don't have the people and places,” explains Pierre-Yves Jardel, in charge of the education brief at the AMF.
In rural areas the school budget is often close to 40% of a commune's overall budget and yet in cash terms the sums they spend are well below that which cities can invest. So asking them to make an additional effort to fund the changes has been badly received. “They can't keep on putting us between a rock and a hard place,” says Cédric Szabo, director of the representative body for rural mayors the Association des maires ruraux de France. He says that rather than seeing this “indispensable” reform delayed two years, he would prefer guarantees on the way in which the poorest communes will be helped.
For him, strengthening a system of cross-subsidisation between affluent and poor towns is essential, convinced as he is that for this reform “the state will not be able to come up with additional money”.
Singing classes funded by oil company Total?
At the Education Ministry, where the law on school reform is being drafted, officials remain very cautious over the different scenarios being studied by the interdepartmental working group involved. The cities are opposed to any more cross-subsidisation, while officials point out that it is a complex measure to implement as it comes under the heading of taxation.
One of the ideas being discussed by Vincent Peillon's team would involve “compensation funds” for the least well-off communes, The social security offices – the caisse d'allocations familiales – could also be asked to make more of a contribution.
Unsurprisingly, the notion of primary school teachers using a significant part of the time freed up by the reforms (up to two-and-a-half of the four hours) to oversee homework at the school rather than at home has been rejected by the main primary school teaching unions. Not only would it be hard to see how the pupils would have benefited - as their school day would be lengthened by the in-school 'homework' – the ministry also knows it would have to find the money to fund this. “For us the question today is to know if the ministry really has the means to carry out its ambitions,” says Sébastien Sihr, secretary general of the SNUipp trade union for primary school teachers.
In a clear sign that the education ministry is still groping in the dark on the issue, Vincent Peillon has even floated the idea of asking corporate foundations - through which businesses back social causes – to contribute. At first glance this may seem an astonishing idea – would there be an hour's singing lessons sponsored by oil giant Total, for example? However, it is not as strange as it may seem, given that through financial support for school trips, for example, these foundations have already established a foothold in schools.
There remains the least taxing solution – calling upon volunteers from youth organisations to take charge of the children during the periods freed up by the reforms. Once again, however, there is the problem that not all towns have a network of associations capable of responding to the demand.
Faced with the disapproval of the local authorities who threaten the implementation of the reforms, the leading association for parents of pupils the Fédération des Parents d'Elèves (FCPE) is “calling on town halls, departments and regions, who are currently preparing their budgets, to release all the funds necessary to reconstruct the school system, in an effort that is, at last, shared and consistent with that of the state”. On the question of spending priorities for local councils, the FCPE's president Jean-Jacques Hazan adds: “The choice is to put the children first, roundabouts can come later!”
-------------------------------------
English version: Michael Streeter