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FRENCH SCHOOLS SCANDAL

SCHOOLS

Scandal of paedophile teachers shocks France

France’s education minister promised a thorough investigation on Wednesday into "systematic failures” after it emerged that numerous teachers were employed to work in schools despite having previous convictions for paedophilia.

Published: 1 April 2015 17:25 CEST
Scandal of paedophile teachers shocks France
Photo: AFP

What began with a headteacher at a school in the south east of France being accused of raping two pupils looks like ending in a huge scandal for the country’s education authorities.

Last month parents at a school in the town of Villefontaine were left outraged after the headteacher was accused of having tricked blindfolded pupils into performing oral sex on him during a workshop on experiencing new tastes.

Parents' shock and anguish was heightened when it emerged the headteacher had a 2008 conviction for possessing images of child porn, but it had not prevented him from taking up a headship.

He later confessed to raping other children and was formally dismissed by France’s education minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem this week.

However other cases of teachers being employed despite a previous conviction for paedophilia have emerged at various schools around the country, notably one in western city of Rennes.

In that case a sports teacher was found to have had a 2006 conviction for holding images of child pornography. He was suspended immediately.

As the scandal began to make waves France’s education minister was forced to admit on Wednesday that as many as 16 teachers had to be dismissed last year after it was discovered they had previous convictions for paedophilia.

“The case of the head teacher has prompted others to speak up,” she said.

Vallaud-Belkacem (pictured above) has vowed a full probe into “the failures” of the system.

“We have ordered an investigation to shed light on the shortcomings of our system and to correct its dysfunctions,” Vallaud-Belkacem told French media after leaving a cabinet meeting.

“We will tackle the issue head on,” the minister told BFM TV. “It is intolerable.”

The headteacher in Villefontaine was not banned from working with children – a fact that may have made it difficult for education authorities to find out about his past before hiring him.

The school's supervisor, Dominique Fis, said local officials had received no information that the suspect was listed in France's national database of child sex offenders.
 
On Wednesday Vallaud-Belkacem made it clear that it’s “not possible for anyone with a conviction for paedophilia to be in front of a class of school children”.

The probe will look at how education authorities were not routinely passed on information from the Ministry of Justice regarding the previous convictions of teachers.

France’s Justice Minister Christiane Taubira also spoke to the media on Wednesday saying authorities need to find out why the information was not shared. She threatened to make it law to to ensure all facts were brought to the attention of the relevant people.

Representatives from the two ministries will meet with attorney generals and local education chiefs to “strengthen the flow of information” between the services.

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DISCRIMINATION

Schools in Sweden discriminate against parents with Arabic names: study

Parents with Arabic-sounding names get a less friendly response and less help when choosing schools in Sweden, according to a new study from the University of Uppsala.

Published: 6 April 2022 12:05 CEST
Schools in Sweden discriminate against parents with Arabic names: study

In one of the largest discrimination experiments ever carried out in the country, 3,430 primary schools were contacted via email by a false parent who wanted to know more about the school. The parent left information about their name and profession.

In the email, the false parent stated that they were interested in placing their child at the school, and questions were asked about the school’s profile, queue length, and how the application process worked. The parent was either low-educated (nursing assistant) or highly educated (dentist). Some parents gave Swedish names and others gave “Arabic-sounding” names.

The report’s author, Jonas Larsson Taghizadeh said that the study had demonstrated “relatively large and statistically significant negative effects” for the fictional Arabic parents. 

“Our results show that responses to emails signed with Arabic names from school principals are less friendly, are less likely to indicate that there are open slots, and are less likely to contain positive information about the school,” he told The Local. 

READ ALSO: Men with foreign names face job discrimination in Sweden: study

The email responses received by the fictional Arabic parents were rated five percent less friendly than those received by the fictional Swedish parents, schools were 3.2 percentage points less likely to tell Arabic parents that there were open slots at the school, and were 3.9 percentage points less likely to include positive information about the municipality or the school. 

There was no statistically significant difference in the response rate and number of questions answered by schools to Swedish or Arabic-sounding parents. 

Taghizadeh said that there was more discrimination against those with a low social-economic status job than against those with an Arabic name, with the worst affected group being those who combined the two. 

“For socioeconomic discrimination, the results are similar, however, here the discrimination effects are somewhat larger,” he told The Local. 

Having a high economic status profession tended to cancel out the negative effects of having an Arabic name. 

“The discrimination effects are substantially important, as they could potentially indirectly influence parents’ school choice decision,” Taghizadeh said.

“Investigating socioeconomic discrimination is also important in itself, as discrimination is seldom studied and as explicit discrimination legislation that bans class-based discrimination is rare in Western countries including Sweden, in contrast to laws against ethnic discrimination.” 

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