The teacher pact, launched in 2023 to compensate for additional voluntary missions, is at a budgetary crossroads. The draft finance bill for 2026 brings this system back to the table, while the Court of Auditors highlights the impossibility of precisely measuring how many teachers benefit from it. The question goes beyond the simple amount lost by each teacher: it concerns the concrete redistribution of tasks that the pact financed.
Substitutions and ancillary missions: the tasks that the pact financed in practice
The pact was not just a salary supplement. It compensated for specific activities, often invisible in the school organization: short-term replacements among colleagues, individualized support, coordination of educational projects, assistance for struggling students.
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The central question is who will take on these missions if the funding disappears. Since 2024, the ministry has imposed a restructuring of replacement resources, with implementation planned for the start of the 2026 school year to improve pedagogical continuity. Replacement thus becomes a central lever for reorganizing teaching work.
Several scenarios coexist in discussions at the ministry regarding the end of the teacher pact in 2026, each redistributing the burden differently among tenured teachers, contract workers, and support staff.
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National education budget 2026: what the decisions reveal
The Senate report on the 2026 finance bill dedicated to school education presents a clear observation. Here are the budgetary tensions as they emerge from the available documents:
| Indicator | Observed trend | Direct consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Candidates for competitions (1st degree public, 2016-2024) | Number of candidates down by 30.8% | Unfilled positions, increased reliance on contract workers |
| Candidates for competitions (2nd degree public, 2016-2024) | Number of candidates down by 32.2% | Disciplines in chronic tension |
| Positions opened (1st degree, same period) | Only a 20.8% decrease | Growing gap between supply and pool |
| Positions opened (2nd degree, same period) | Decrease of 17.8% | Plummeting selectivity |
| Teacher salaries | Considered “still very insufficient” by the Senate | Structural attractiveness deficit |
The gap between the decrease in the number of candidates and the decrease in the number of positions opened shows that the problem is not simply a reduction in recruitment. The pool of candidates is drying up faster than the supply contracts. The elimination of the pact, without a clear compensation, risks worsening this dynamic.
Teacher recruitment reform 2026: a new training pathway
The 2026 back-to-school circular announces a consolidation of the reforms undertaken, “no new structural reforms.” The recruitment reform, however, significantly modifies the pathway to entering the profession.
External competitions are now held from the bachelor’s degree. Successful candidates then enter a two-year paid master’s statutory training, with tenure maintained at the bac + 5 level after validation of the internship. This change aims to make the profession accessible earlier, without lowering the final qualification level.
Recruitment in M1 MEEF will stop at the start of the 2026 school year for several mentions, while M1 MEEF students already engaged in 2025-2026 will remain in the existing system. This transition period creates a coexistence of profiles with different statuses in the institutions.
- Post-bachelor graduates enter a two-year paid pathway, which improves financial attractiveness at the start of their careers.
- Current tenured teachers may potentially lose the pact supplement without any announced substitution mechanism.
- Contract workers, whose rise in the public service is documented by the Court of Auditors, continue to occupy an increasing share of unfilled positions.
In other words, the system invests in entry into the profession but remains vague on retaining teachers already in service.
Attractiveness of the teaching profession: beyond the salary scale
The Senate qualifies teacher salaries as “very insufficient” and sees it as the main source of low attractiveness. The pact was a partial response to this diagnosis: a supplement conditioned on additional missions, not a revaluation of the base salary.
Its elimination without a salary relay poses a concrete problem. Teachers who provided short-term replacements or academic support through the pact will no longer have financial incentives for replacement. The ministry will then have to choose between several options:
- Integrate these missions into service obligations, which amounts to increasing the workload without compensation.
- Create a new indemnity system, which would replicate the pact under another name.
- Outsource certain tasks to external agents or dedicated contract workers.
- Accept that these missions will no longer be carried out, with a direct impact on pedagogical continuity.
The 2026 back-to-school circular emphasizes refocusing staff on their “core profession” and requests to “prefer quality over quantity.” This wording suggests a reduction in peripheral demands. The pact specifically financed these peripheral tasks, and its disappearance could paradoxically facilitate this refocusing, provided that replacement and support find other channels.
The decisions for 2026 go beyond just the budget line of the pact. The more than 30% drop in candidates for competitions over eight years, combined with salaries that the Senate deems structurally insufficient, outlines a profession whose attractiveness will not be resolved by a one-off indemnity system or a reform of recruitment alone.
The key data to monitor remains the gap between open positions and present candidates: as long as it widens, no compensation mechanism will be sufficient to stabilize the system.