Elimination of 107 teaching positions at the beginning of the 2024 academic year in Guadeloupe

This is information that, like every year, leaves National Education staff feeling frustrated: During the next academic year, in September 2024, there will be further cuts to teaching positions within the academy.
As is the case every year, the university administration justifies this decision by the decrease in student numbers, whether in primary or secondary education.
However, management is happy in its press release that “Supervision rates that have developed positively over ten years”.

While teaching unions continue to demand more human resources within the Academy of Guadeloupe, the opposite phenomenon is observed from year to year.
The decline in student numbers at the archipelago's institutions is a recurring argument used by the university administration to justify the reductions made in staff numbers.

Within a decade, the academic region will record a drop in school enrollment of more than 20,000 public sector students, or more than a fifth, with a 25% decline in primary education and a 16.5% decline in secondary education.

Press release from the Academic District of Guadeloupe

Thus, we are talking about a total of 1,246 fewer students at the start of the 2024 school year, including 502 freshmen and 744 middle and high school students.

This number inevitably affects the provision of educational resources.
The unions denounced this calculation, as they preferred to talk about the necessary quality of education, instead of talking exclusively about numbers.

We cannot base recruitment on demographics alone, when we know that we are in a department with very complex situations: more than 40% of family units are below the poverty line, 98% of our institutions should be in priority education, 30% of our youth are leaving the educational system. Without a certificate (…). On the contrary, it is necessary to take advantage of the decrease in numbers, to provide primary schools with classes divided into large sections, in Cp and CE1, but also so that the number of classes does not exceed 24 pupils, especially in the middle stage.

Eddy Séjour, Secretary General of the Federal Football Association of Guadeloupe

For teacher representatives, it is about combating the decline in academic standards and against academic failure in the academy.

The Social Committee of the National Education Department met on Thursday, December 21 to decide on resources allocated to public schools at the beginning of the next academic year.

In 1^any degree (kindergartens and primary schools) Guadeloupe will lose 52 positions.
In fact, the demographic decline (up to 1.4%) would have resulted in the elimination of 69 teaching positions. However, in order to allow working by level group, 17 posts have been allocated to the district.

Taking into account the need for differentiated working groups that the FFA does not satisfy; For the Federation, this measure must extend to the entire region.

If there is a place on the academie's prior education, it's about 200 posts because it's falling flat, so it's a beautiful lure that we have in our classes and it's a beautiful lure that comes across the surface. School failure. We can't be satisfied with crumbs, in our archipelagic academy, also based in Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthelemy! We should have had more resources!

Eddy Séjour, Secretary General of the Federal Football Association of Guadeloupe

In the second degree (middle and high schools) where the student loss rate is 1.9%, The archipelago will have to do without 55 participantsincluding 5 full-time equivalents in annual overtime (ETP HSA).

This is very bad news! Especially when the Minister of Education, Mr. Attal*, announces that we will have to conduct a cognitive shock, to ensure better monitoring of students, is it not true that this year we are again suffering from a reduction of 107 jobs, while last year we suffered from a reduction of 131 jobs. It is a continuation of this bleeding on our lands.

Teddy Tancones, Academic Secretary of SNCL Guadeloupe

* Read also: In 2024, “a third of the job opportunities” for teachers in secondary education will be abroad, confirms Gabriel Attal – 12/21/2023.

Our academy is always placed in the top three of the best supervised academies.

Press release from the Academic District of Guadeloupe

The SNCL union disagrees with this point.

This is the average that is taken. When we weigh the crowded classes we can have in Guadeloupe and the very small numbers we can find in Les Saintes, La Désirade… it is clear that the average indicates that we have a good staffing ratio. But this is not the reality on the ground.

Teddy Tancones, Academic Secretary of SNCL Guadeloupe

As a reminder, last September, all CP, CE1, CM1, 6ᵉ and 4ᵉ students took a French and mathematics test to measure their academic level. Young people living abroad, including Guadeloupeans, lag significantly behind their counterparts in France.