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EDUCATION

France’s schools will reopen as planned after Easter break

France's schools will reopen as planned after the rescheduled Easter break, the government spokesman has confirmed.

France's schools will reopen as planned after Easter break
Photo: Denis Charlet/AFP

Schools in France were placed under a three-week closure – one week of distance learning and two weeks of rescheduled Easter holidays – as part of the ‘partial lockdown’ measures brought in at the start of April in an attempt to contain rapidly rising Covid case rates.

Announcing the closure at the start of April, president Emmanuel Macron said that primary schools would return on Monday, April 26th while secondary (collège) and high schools (lycée) would have one more week of distance learning before returning to in-person classes from Monday, May 3rd.

Government spokesman Gabriel Attal on Thursday confirmed this timetable.

He said: “The nurseries will reopen and primary school students will return to their classes on April 26th. Collège students and lycée students too, from May 3rd.”

Lycées have the option of giving up to 50 percent of their teaching via distance learning, and it is up to individual institutions to decide how much in-person teaching they do.

Attal added: “For some, the return to class could be done in half-class groups.”

Normally Easter holiday dates vary by region, but the government changed the dates for some areas so that the whole country had the same two weeks of holiday this year.

The French government has always said that closing schools is a last resort and schools remained open during the second lockdown. The government hopes that the three-week closure will be enough to halt the spread of the virus in schools, so that they can remain open until the summer holidays.

Attal added that the number of self-testing kits and the new saliva tests for Covid will be increased for schools as they go back.

All other health precautions such as the compulsory wearing of masks for staff and children over the age of 6 remain in place.

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EDUCATION

French pupils protest crumbling school on TikTok

Pupils at a high school in a run-down Paris suburb have gone viral on Tiktok calling out decrepit buildings and a lack of replacement teachers.

French pupils protest crumbling school on TikTok

In response, school authorities on Friday summoned the four teachers in the video, teachers and the regional education body told AFP.

Students and teachers in Seine-Saint-Denis, one of France’s poorest departments with a high immigrant population northeast of the capital, have been on strike off and on since late February.

With strong backing from parents, they are demanding more funds to better equip and staff their classrooms.

Pupils and several of their teachers at the Blaise-Cendrars high school last week brought attention to their plight with a Tiktok video that has reached 2.6 million views.

“We’re in Blaise-Cendrars… Of course we have a bucket for leaks because we don’t have a ceiling,” says one student at the school, named after a Swiss-born novelist and poet.

The short video takes users on a quick tour of their dilapidated school, from ill-equipped classrooms to a bathroom without soap, interviewing some teaching staff along the way.

“I’m a French teacher at Blaise-Cendrars… Of course when I was pregnant my students didn’t have French lessons for six months,” one says.

One teacher, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the summons by school officials to the meeting Friday was a form of “intimidation”, adding that the
teachers had not started the Tiktok account.

Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburb of 1.5 million inhabitants, has a poverty rate almost double the national average and a large young population.

Twenty years ago, protests and strike action that lasted two months resulted in the creation of 3,000 jobs.

READ ALSO: French town tests controversial school uniforms

France’s President Emmanuel Macron in January announced several changes in the education system, including testing school uniforms at dozens of schools — a trial towards possibly making them compulsory nationwide.

Student Lilly Guerry, in her penultimate year of high school at Blaise-Cendrars, told AFP on Tuesday she wished the state would listen.

“We’re fed up with being ignored, being abandoned by the government,” she said.

Lea Monbaylet, whose idea it was to start the Tiktok campaign, said finding replacement teachers should be a priority.

“It’s not uniforms that are going to give us a great education,” she said.

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