A mandatory step in the profession for some, a choice for others, the status of TZR (Replacement Zone Teacher) is experienced differently by different people. B., 27 years old, is a young History-Geography teacher. He did not choose his status. He has been a TZR for two years. A full-fledged teacher, he holds a permanent position in a replacement zone, just as others hold a permanent position in a fixed establishment. However, for this new school year, Benoît has no position. A situation that inconveniences him.
What definition would you give to the status of TZR?
I am a National Education kleenex. A stopgap. I am a teacher without being one. For me, being a TZR means having a job without having a function. I feel like a social parasite.
I have a very telling anecdote about the importance attached to the TZR. I did my back-to-school orientation on Thursday, at the middle school to which I am attached. After presenting the main lines of the establishment, the principal called the teaching staff, the administrative staff, and the ATOS. Incredibly: the principal forgot to call the TZR.
I thought the TZR were the last wheel of the carriage, but it turns out the TZR are not even in the carriage.
You have been a TZR for now two school starts. Can you describe the daily life of a person with such a status?
I live in expectation. I wait to be useful. I wait to be called. Sometimes, some principals use and abuse the TZR, in the sense that they can ask us to cover hours in the library. However, the profession of librarian requires passing a competitive exam. Thus, middle school Principals, by proposing TZR to replace librarians, disregard this profession. A profession necessary for the educational life of a middle school. As far as I am concerned, starting Friday, at the request of the head of the establishment, I will start to plug a hole. Indeed, a technology teacher is absent; I will take over his classes for an hour. I am going to tackle commenting on the college’s IT charter! Quite a program.
For the 2005-2006 school year, according to the SNES, there are 1,000 TZR in the Nice academy, across all disciplines. Where does the problem of “too many TZR” come from, in your opinion?
It’s surely due to the fact that incompetent people are hired at the rectorate of Nice. If there are so many TZR, it’s because there’s a personnel management problem. Then, the problem also comes from the fact that the administration, due to lack of budget, does not establish posts in line with the schools.
I blame the system. We suffer from a completely outdated system, thought out and put in place by the post-68 generation. They want nothing to change. And nothing changes.
Some TZR do not work for several months, even years. Have you thought about palliative solutions so that TZR not performing replacements remain anchored in the educational system?
TZR who are left out in the cold need to perform very specific tasks, within their competencies, and without taking the place, of course, of other qualified individuals (Note: Librarians). Splitting classes, doing hours in prisons, helping populations in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and providing support for students in great difficulty would be some of the solutions.
Last Thursday was the teachers’ back-to-school day. Monday was for the students. How does one experience a school start without students?
We remember the previous school year. That formidable moment when we discover each other, when we get to know each other. A school start without students is frustrating because, in my opinion, it is the most beautiful moment of the year. I will not have experienced the anxiety of that exceptional meeting.
Enclosure on the movement: “Angry TZR”
Stunned by new reforms over recent years (loss of bonus points, out-of-zone assignment, out-of-field…) and convinced that TZR serve as a Trojan horse to introduce more flexibility in the national education, a number of TZR have decided to react by forming a collective: “Angry TZR.”
Their battle concerns primarily the TZR, but also the precarious workers of the National Education who “suffer from the dysfunction of the replacement system,” the tenured teachers in fixed positions who “begin to pay a few broken pots,” and the parents whose children “see the public education service deteriorate.”
Their goal is first to unify their demands around a joint text. Then, to think about actions to be taken to make their replacement problem known to other teachers, parents, and students.
Their final intent: to bring their grievances to the rectorates or even the ministry.
