Five weeks after the passage of Cyclone Chido and a week before the students, teachers in Mayotte returned to school on Monday in a stormy context, between establishments still not repaired and another where victims were evacuated.
The return of students, initially scheduled for January 13 and postponed several times, will take place “from January 27”according to the Ministry of Education.
Despite this postponement, general uncertainty still reigns in Mayotte, where many establishments are not yet able to accommodate the approximately 117,000 students enrolled in the youngest department in France.
In a press release, the Ministry of National Education explained on Monday that the arrangements for welcoming students would be “adapted to each school”.
Pour “guarantee educational continuity”of the “class rotation systems” will be set up and courses will be “broadcast on the Mayotte-La 1ère channel”adds the press release.
Students will benefit from “donations of school supplies” and may have recourse to “psychological support”continues the ministry.
At the National Assembly, where deputies begin examining the emergency bill for Mayotte on Monday, Overseas Minister Manuel Valls admitted that the start of the school year will be “gradual, complex, difficult” and presented “a challenge”30% of establishments being, according to him, unusable or occupied.
Monday morning, around ten teachers gathered under the leadership of unions in front of the Mayotte rectorate in Mamoudzou, the capital, to protest against the terms of allocation of a post-Chido bonus and the conditions of the reopening of schools.
“We are being forced to return to school without knowing the conditions, particularly access to water and electricity”denounced to AFP Yamina Ali, primary school teacher in Mamoudzou, assuring that her colleagues had not been able to enter the establishment on Monday, the gate being non-functional without electricity.
– Transfer in confusion –
Another point of tension, the Younoussa-Bamana high school in Mamoudzou, where victims of the cyclone were housed, most of them migrants from the African Great Lakes region. Groups of residents entered the compound on Friday to try to dislodge them, in a context of persistent anger against foreigners in Mayotte.
On Monday, these migrants were evacuated in the greatest confusion, their initially planned transfer to a gymnasium having been canceled at the last moment. At the start of the afternoon, several hundred of them were still waiting next to their gathered belongings without knowing where they would go, AFP noted.
According to the CGT Educ’action, Younoussa-Bamana was the only establishment still occupied.
Last week, the rector of the Mayotte academy, Jacques Mikulovic, affirmed on France Culture that 39 schools (out of 221 schools “administrative”) were unable to function. Five secondary schools out of 33 were “significantly impacted” by the cyclone.
Back to school on the 27th, “That’s the goal for this week. We are going to take stock of the educational materials, call the students to make a precise inventory, we also saw this need for psychological support”he declared Monday at the school campus of Bandrélé (south-east) where he had come to attend the start of the school year, quoted by Mayotte-La 1ère.
The Minister of Education, Elisabeth Borne, whose trip to the territory at the end of December with Prime Minister François Bayrou had been stormy, planned to go to Mayotte the week of January 27 to discuss with the educational community, parents and the students.
According to teachers interviewed by AFP, the question of the number of students they will have at the start of the school year also arises. At the Lycée des Lumières in Kaweni, the education service “School life is taking stock of the children who are still in the territory, many having gone to Reunion or France”said a professor wishing to remain anonymous.
At the national assembly on Monday, Manuel Valls announced the coverage on social criteria of plane tickets for secondary school children who would be forced to follow their schooling in another territory due to the state of their establishment.