Access to the Teaching Profession in France: A Story of National ‘Résistance’ Against Some Supranational Tendencies

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. Our historical time has a certain obsession with the role of teachers: (i) because of its key role in a certain idea of the quality of education; (ii) for the supposedly necessary and unavoidable improvement of their initial education programmes; (iii) for the desired transformation of their processes of selection and induction. METHOD. We analyse the ideal teacher of the XXI century promoted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union (EU) from their documents, as well as the paths they propose to achieve it. It is done in two phases. First, collecting all reports on teachers since 2005 (n=32) and secondly analysing 3 of them for reasons of relevance and social impact. After this, the French teacher recruitment system for the primary and secondary levels is studied in depth. The exams teachers must passed are also described. RESULTS. From the EU is presented as a normative ideal teacher the one who gives protagonist to the student, to accompany him as a mentor in the learning process and who has got a didactic competence. The ideal teacher promoted by the OECD, as it is deduced from the analysis that we have developed, is the competency based teacher capable of collaborating with other teachers, who is autonomous in his decision-making and who is well prepared in cultural diversity. France, on the other hand, far from betting on soft skills for teacher improvement maintains that, in order to have the best teachers of the 21st century, we need to evaluate their scientific, didactic and pedagogical skills in a specific field of curricular instruction as a priority goal. DISCUSSION. Undoubtedly, this is an example of resistance to the global reformist agenda that we believe can bring new discussions on the improvement of the teaching profession in Europe.