“I was completely let loose in nature.” Gaëlle, a contract teacher for six years, remembers her first return to school as if it were yesterday. “They asked me if I was available during the day, I dropped my children off at school and at 1:30 p.m. I was in front of my class”, recalls this former engineer, who confided in franceinfo , Tuesday, August 30. Without a job interview or training, Gaëlle finds herself in front of 31 CM1 and CM2 students. “A child told me they were reading a book so I caught up with the wagons like that, she explains. It was improvisation.” Gaëlle’s experience, many contract teachers have also experienced it. These first and second level teachers are recruited each year, on the basis of a diploma but without competition, in order to teach in areas where there is a lack of holders. And there are more and more of them every year. In the public sector, their number almost doubled between 2008 and 2021, reaching nearly 40,000 across France. More than 5% of the total workforce. The start of the 2022 school year should easily beat this record. In “a context of unprecedented tension for the recruitment of teachers”, the Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye, announced the hiring of 3,000 additional contract workers. The unions deplore the difficult working conditions linked to this precarious status. A dozen of these non-tenured teachers told us about their experience, sometimes complicated, in the deep end of National Education. The adventure of contract workers almost always begins in the same way. After submitting a CV on the ministry’s platform or at Pôle Emploi, these higher education graduates of all ages receive a phone call informing them of their assignment to one or more establishments. A call that is often slow to arrive, as the start of the school year approaches. “It’s August 30, it’s 11:16 a.m. The pre-return is tomorrow. I have no information,” worries Jennifer, reached by phone. On the first day of school, this contractual Spanish teacher had still not received an assignment. Last year, she had already had the unpleasant surprise of moving from full-time to part-time. Enough to melt his income and rekindle his anxieties. “From one year to another, you don’t know what sauce you’re going to be eaten with.” Jennifer, contract teacher at franceinfo At the same time, other contract teachers contacted by franceinfo were still waiting for a response. “I don’t know yet if I will have a job, no one has called me”, Linda was already worried on Tuesday. Rightly so: on the morning of the start of the school year, she had still not been contacted. In 2021, already, this contractual professor of mathematics and visual arts in Ile-de-France, had to wait until October to finally get an assignment following a withdrawal, despite her ten years of experience. “We fill in the holes”, sums up Lionel, another contractor. (JEREMIE LUCIANI / FRANCEINFO) Eloi *, he still had no contact with the rectorate on Tuesday when he was to start the next day in an establishment. “I don’t have a work contract and when I call the rectorate, I get a voicemail which tells me that they are closed until September 14”, blows this history-geography professor, who has finally signed his contract on Wednesday, the day of the pre-return of the teachers. Last year was no better. “I had been offered a position on the first day of school and asked me to also teach French.” An unacceptable situation for the unions. “We must assume that a recruited teacher cannot find himself in front of a class in twenty-four hours”, claims Sophie Vénétitay, secretary general of Snes-FSU. Without being able to anticipate, contract teachers often arrive in their establishment with nothing but their schoolbag to start working. Mélissa*, a teacher under this status for just over four years in Puy-de-Dôme, describes a form of “rush” followed by a feeling of “loneliness” when recalling her first day of class. “I was alone in front of a group of BTS, nothing was set up to welcome me, she laments. That day, I did not even have access to the ENT [Environnement numérique de travail] right away, and I was not necessarily given contact with the teachers.” At the beginning, “we are a little loose in the arena”, Linda abounds. She remembers the complicated beginnings, eleven years ago “I had an appointment with an inspector: they didn’t even ask me if I knew how to perform an operation,” she says indignantly. then learns on the job the specifics of the job, such as “knowing how to manage a group” or “how to make a class plan”.The first days of contract are often synonymous with “improvisation” for these contract workers, who arrived in a hurry to replace absent teachers. “These teachers we replace do not necessarily have the time to teach us anything, explains Gaëlle. So, at the beginning, we sometimes chain evenings and evenings of work to catch up on everything.” “I asked for help. It made my superiors laugh, they said to me: ‘Make it happen!'” Julie, contractual teacher in the Toulouse academy at franceinfo For the first time this year, contractual teachers were invited by their rectorate to a training of a few days before the start of the school year, on the directive of the Ministry of Education. On the program: four days of learning the basics of the profession and some scenarios. “We are very happy that it was finally able to be put in place, we We have been asking for it for a long time”, welcomes Dorothée Crespin, national delegate for Unsa Education. Insufficient training, judge for her part Sophie Vénétitay: “It is illusory to believe that you can become a teacher in just four days”. elsewhere, the ministry, contacted by franceinfo, recalls that, throughout the year, contractual staff can, “like all other staff”, register for training.In the first degree, eighteen hours of formed compulsory are also provided for the entire teaching staff. But, in fact, many contractors interviewed report difficulties in freeing up time for training. “Establishments don’t necessarily have the time to let us go, explains Gaëlle. Sometimes you have to travel more than an hour from home, it’s complicated.” Especially since you have to train “outside class hours”, on your own time, explains Linda, who regrets “too high expectations” compared to “little recognition”. the great machine of National Education, contract teachers very often feel a bit alone. “We find ourselves in a family with codes, and in this family, there is the intruder. The contractual is the intruder”, testifies Angèle *, professor of plastic arts who taught as a contractual for more than ten years. Linda remembers her year 2021, during which a contract led her to pass only seven hours a week in an establishment. “I saw little of my colleagues, she confides. We feel that we are not integrated, that we are not part of the team.” Over a short period, “the teachers do not try too hard to talk to us because they know that we do not is not there for long”, adds Gaëlle. Sometimes, it goes further: some more qualified teachers “refuse to greet” non-tenured teachers or then assign themselves “dedicated areas in the teachers’ room”, tell several “In the teachers’ room, there were those who had the right to sit in the chairs and the others. We contract workers stayed on their feet.” Benoît, contract teacher at the Grenoble Academy at franceinfo These repeated misadventures should not hide many successful experiences. “The teaching team immediately took me under their wing to coach me and give me advice”, welcomes Eloi*, a contract worker in the Lyon region. An experienced teacher has even become his tutor “on his personal time”, he specifies. It must be said that the sometimes difficult working conditions in some establishments, teachers tend to weld together. “In college, everyone is in the same boat, notes Benoit. Under these conditions, there is no longer any difference or competition.”* The first name has been changed at the request of the person concerned.