Education

French Education Minister: Not returning to class would be catastrophic

Paris (France), Sep 11 (EFE), (Camera: Marta Garde).- France wanted all its children to return to school on September 1 with the conviction, according to its Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, that education cannot be sacrificed despite the pandemic, because there is the risk of a global educational catastrophe caused by school dropouts.FOOTAGE OF JEAN-MICHEL BLANQUER IN AN INTERVIEW IN WITH EFE AND RADIO FRANCE INTERNATIONAL TRANSLATIONS:QUESTION: Is the new normality one with a discontinuous education?ANSWER: It is totally normal to close schools preventively in these circumstances. Generally (the cases) come from contamination that has taken place outside the school and it must be said that there are 32 centers out of 60,000 throughout the country.The daily piloting allows us to have a vigilance compatible with our great objective of having a school for everyone.Q: Ensuring social distance in schools has gone from being an obligation to a recommendation in France.A: It is a recommendation that in many cases is followed but in other cases it cannot be followed and that is why there is a general obligation to wear a mask.Q: France was very clear from the end of the confinement that school should be a priority, but countries like Spain extended the return to classes. Should there be a European coordination?A: There should be European coordination and stronger global cooperation. Education is not something that can be sacrificed on these kinds of occasions. We have the risk of a global educational catastrophe, of having millions of students leaving the classroom and not returning.I have tried to reduce this risk in the French case, but we have to do it at the European and global level. Getting everyone into school, especially girls, is an effort of the last decades, and we know that many will not come back. Youth in general and education in particular must be our priorities.Each country has had its own strategy. The important thing is to cooperate to exchange good practices. The design of online courses could be done in common among the countries that speak Spanish. We have taken initiatives of this kind in the French-speaking world.Q: What would happen if the situation continues to worsen in France?A: Experience has shown us that we must be open to all possibilities, but we are trying to avoid another lockdown. Rather, we plan to partially close places and schools, because the situation is different in different territories.The health and social consequences (of a new lockdown) would be too heavy. Educational weakness, unemployment and lack of sociability are very serious problems and that is why we must find balanced formulas in terms of health and priorities.Q: What have we learned from the first wave?A: The use of digital tools has progressed a lot. From March until now there have been many initiatives to train teachers in technologies. The most important thing has been the evolution of mentalities and practices.Q: The confinement made more visible the inequalities in the access to the material to follow the distance courses.A: The crisis has increased this problem in all countries. A first inequality is the computer equipment, so in March, April and May we organized its distribution. We consider that about 5% of the families did not have what they needed and maybe we have halved that figure.Another factor is the personal context of each student, so there is a work of communication with parents and a sensitization of families to the challenges of education, especially to those who did not send students to school when it opened again.Q: Students are not forced to take PCR tests. Is the educational strategy largely based on good faith?A: It is based on the idea that a PCR is not good for everyone at the same time because it would have to be done every day. The strategy is more to do PCR when there are symptoms and if it is positive try to break the chain of contamination.Q: What would be a perfect school year in 2020?A: The most optimistic scenario would be to have an almost normal year thanks to the health measures we have taken. In that scenario, the virus would also disappear in a few months thanks to the vaccine.When there is a difficulty, there can also be positive consequences, for example the sense of hygiene and civility, the ability to find innovative solutions. These elements are positive points coming out of the crisis. FOOTAGE OF AND STATEMENTS BY FRENCH EDUCATION MINISTER JEAN-MICHEL BLANQUER