Teachers working in a private institution under contract with the State are not civil servants. They are also not private sector employees. Since the Censi law, which came into effect at the start of the 2005 school year, they hold the title of public law contractual agents. This legal qualification, confirmed by the Council of State, creates a separate category that does not overlap with the status of civil servants or the labor code.
Public agent without belonging to a body: what the Censi law changed
Before 2005, the legal status of teachers in private institutions under contract remained unclear. The Censi law established a clear framework: these teachers are employed and paid by the State, perform a public service mission, but are not integrated into a civil service body.
Further reading : The art school in Montpellier: a melting pot of creativity and innovation
A civil servant belongs to a body (certified teachers, aggregated teachers, school teachers) and progresses according to the rules of that body. A teacher in a private institution under contract is placed on a salary scale corresponding to a body, without being part of it. Career progression and gross salary follow the same grids, but the administrative attachment differs.
To better understand the status of teachers in private institutions under contract, one must start from this distinction between salary scale and belonging to a body.
Recommended read : Chablis: the brilliance of Burgundy terroir
This structure explains why private teachers benefit from most of the rights of civil servants (advancement, access to continuing education, leave) while retaining their own specificities.
Retirement and social protection: the real divergences with the public sector
The gross salary is identical for equivalent positions. The basic social protection (health, maternity) is also the same. The divide appears in retirement.
A public teacher contributes to the State’s civil pension scheme. A teacher in a private institution under contract falls under the general social security scheme, supplemented by a complementary pension (AGIRC-ARRCO). The employee contribution rate for retirement is higher for private teachers than for civil servants. With identical careers and gross salaries, the net amount received each month differs.
This difference in retirement schemes is a direct consequence of the status of non-civil public agent. It is one of the points most frequently raised by unions such as Snec-CFTC.
Unemployment rights and insurance
Another often overlooked feature: teachers in private institutions under contract have unemployment rights, unlike tenured civil servants. In the event of job loss (non-renewal of contract, job elimination), they can receive unemployment benefits. They also benefit from specific insurance schemes that do not exist for their public counterparts.
Mobility and reclassification: the limits of the hybrid status
A civil servant in the National Education can request a transfer between public institutions through a national grading system. A teacher in a private institution under contract does not participate in the inter-academic movement of the public sector. Their mobility goes through a different mechanism, with priority access to vacant positions in private institutions under contract in their academy.
Professional reclassification illustrates a concrete limit of the hybrid status. When a public teacher can no longer work (disability, occupational illness), the administration can reclassify them into another civil service body. For a private teacher, this reclassification is much more complicated: they do not belong to any body, which closes most internal pathways.
The issue of job accommodation for private teachers with disabilities is now the subject of increasing litigation. Without belonging to a body, the adaptation measures remain less structured than in the public sector.
Contractual link with the institution
A commonly misunderstood point concerns the dual legal relationship. The teacher in a private institution under contract is paid by the State, but they are bound by a contract to the institution where they teach. This link with the institution determines the concrete assignment, the organization of the service, and the respect for the specific character of the institution (often confessional).
The head of a private institution is not the hierarchical superior in the sense of the civil service, but they have functional authority over the pedagogical organization. This distribution of responsibilities between the State as employer and the institution of practice has no equivalent in public education.
Exams and access to the profession: a parallel path
Candidates for private institutions under contract take exams distinct from those in the public sector, but of equivalent level:
- The CAFEP (certificate of aptitude for teaching functions in the private sector) corresponds to the CAPES in the public sector, with the same tests and the same jury
- The CAER (access competition to the salary scale) allows teachers already in position to access a higher scale, similar to internal aggregation in the public sector
- Delegated teachers, recruited without exams for replacements, have had a specific regulatory framework since the decree of August 8, 2023
The choice between public and private is made at the time of registration for the exam. Transitioning from one sector to another during a career is possible but involves retaking an exam or obtaining a detachment, a procedure that remains infrequent.
The status of teachers in private institutions under contract remains a unique legal object in French law. Neither civil servants nor employees, these teachers perform the same job, follow the same programs, take exams of the same level, but their attachment to the general scheme for retirement and the impossibility of reclassification into a civil service body draw a boundary that, despite successive approaches, has never been erased.