The teacher pact, launched in 2023 to enhance the profession and fund complementary missions, is at a turning point. The budget allocated to it has been reduced by two-thirds. The draft finance bill for 2026 forces the Ministry of National Education to choose between several directions, with no official scenario having been made public at this stage.
Private agricultural education: an abandonment of the pact that serves as a laboratory
The articles addressing the teacher pact focus on budget cuts and increased control within the National Education system. However, one angle remains absent: the outright termination of the scheme in private agricultural education under contract. The National Union of Private Agricultural Education (SYNEP) has confirmed that the pact ceased to apply at the end of the 2023-2024 school year for institutions covered by the IDCC 7520 agreement.
This sectoral withdrawal sets a concrete precedent. It shows that a differentiated exit from the pact depending on the networks is technically possible, without the need for a comprehensive legislative text. Public agricultural education, on the other hand, retains the scheme, but the mission report from CGAAER published in June 2026 explicitly questions the risks associated with its potential revocation for the approximately 12,500 agents and 110,000 learners involved.
Several scenarios for the teacher pact 2026 are circulating in union and administrative circles, ranging from targeted maintenance to gradual elimination, including a complete overhaul of the compensation mechanism.
Increased control of missions: what the ministry requires from management staff
Before deciding on the future of the pact, the ministry has chosen to verify how it operates on the ground. Post-hoc checks have been deployed in certain academies to verify the alignment between declared hours and actual missions performed. School leaders must now precisely justify each functional share paid under the ISOE or ISAE.
This administrative tightening reflects direct budgetary pressure. The available data does not allow for knowing the exact number of teachers who actually receive the supplement, nor does it measure the impact of the pact on the quality of service provided to students.
Unions denounce a bureaucratization that goes against the initial objectives of the scheme, which was designed to promote volunteering. Management staff find themselves in a controlling role they had not anticipated, generating tensions within schools.
Budgetary options for the teacher pact in the 2026 finance bill
The draft finance bill for 2026 generally stabilizes the budget for the school education mission after six years of increases. This stabilization masks contrasting developments depending on the programs and the nature of the expenses. The teacher pact is at the crossroads of two contradictory logics:
- The salary enhancement of teachers remains a stated objective, driven by the presidential promise of 2022, but the available resources are shrinking.
- The demographic decline in primary education theoretically frees up jobs, which the ministry could redeploy towards other priorities (support for AESH, continuing education, class splitting).
- The Senate report on school education emphasizes that teachers’ salaries remain insufficient despite recent efforts, which undermines any attempt to reduce the pact’s budget without compensation.
The scenario of a maintenance of the pact with a reduced scope seems the most likely given the budgetary constraints. The least requested complementary missions could be eliminated, while those related to short-term replacements or support in mathematics and French would be safeguarded.
Mandatory teacher training: a parallel scheme that changes the game
A program of mandatory continuing education for primary school teachers is being implemented, organized outside the logic of paid volunteering of the pact. These trainings are linked to service, with reductions planned on the 108 annual hours.
This development is significant. It means that the ministry is constructing a distinct skills development pathway from the pact, which could ultimately reduce the need for paid complementary missions for peer training. If training becomes a service obligation rather than a pact mission, part of the budget currently allocated to the scheme would be reallocated.
Field feedback varies on this point. In some schools, teachers perceive mandatory training as an additional burden without financial compensation. In others, it replaces pact sessions deemed poorly structured and allows for a more coherent pedagogical framework at the academy level.
School education and educational policy: the decisions that remain to be made
The ministry has not yet made public the final decisions on the pact for the 2026 school year. Several questions remain open:
- Will the pact be maintained in secondary education with the same missions as in 2025, or will some be merged with revised service obligations?
- Could the number of AESH, whose funding is under pressure, benefit from a partial redeployment of the pact’s budget?
- Will the functional share of the ISOE and ISAE be enhanced to compensate for the reduction in the number of eligible missions?
School education is no longer the largest budget item of the state, now surpassed by the Defense mission. This symbolic setback weighs in negotiations. The ministry’s room for maneuver is shrinking with each budget exercise, and the teacher pact, designed in a post-Covid recovery context, must now justify every euro spent in the face of competing priorities such as school infrastructure or inclusive education.
The CGAAER report on agricultural education summarizes the tension well: the pact has supported legislative ambitions (increasing the number of learners, agro-ecological transitions), and its revocation would undermine these objectives without a ready alternative. This same logic applies, on a larger scale, to the entire education system.