The head of education in the Alpes Maritimes and the Var has admitted that the education service performed badly last year.   The Rector is appointed by Central government to manage the local education, and he has stated that “all the dials on our dashboard were in the red at the end of last year”.  Among the major concerns are: number of children leaving education with no qualifications (1500); number of children under-achieving; and ratio of teachers to pupils.  He was pressed hard on the topic of absences of teachers - some teachers can be absent for up to three weeks before any replacement is used, and this is a major point of contention from parents. “We are bringing that down to two weeks, and we are recruiting more teachers to improve the ratios. We are building up a team of supply teachers. We are going to give each child two hours of individual coaching, either to help them with subjects they can’t manage, or to help them dig deeper”.