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Bordeaux Middle School Logs 1,700 Lost Class Hours as Officials Pledge Fixes

The response highlights a national struggle to replace absent teachers despite planned job cuts.

Overview

  • The Gironde education chief said Wednesday the 2026 intake is "secured" after a leadership change and a fast-track system for teacher replacement requests at Collège Aliénor d’Aquitaine.
  • Since September, the school has recorded about 1,700 lost teaching hours due to unfilled absences, equal to 13% of instruction time, with some students spending up to a fifth of their day in study hall.
  • Students reported months without core subjects like English, history and French, and many say they feel demotivated and stressed as homework and preparation have slipped.
  • Parents organized under the group "On veut des profs" began pressing authorities in November and staged a late-March protest, warning that promises rely on short-term staffing that may not hold.
  • Teachers and unions call the replacement gap chronic and warn of continued strain, pointing to a seven-hour cut in the school’s allocation next year and a wider backdrop of 4,000 national post cuts and a Cour des comptes finding of a 9% average of lost hours.