Veteran Educator Retires After 35 Years Serving French Public Schools

"On September 1, I will be a happy retiree, because I have the feeling of having accomplished things that I am proud of. I have defended a quality public service. During my career, I have been a loyal servant of the Republic, but never servile," confides to the newspaper La Montagne Abdennabi Zaher. He is thus ending his career at the Madame-de-Staël high school in Montluçon (Allier) where he has been the principal since 2015. In total, 35 years in the service of education.

If his mother had not been there, the young Abdennabi would have ended up in the agricultural fields. His father, a Moroccan agricultural worker, preferred that he work alongside him. A choice that his wife had opposed. Thanks to his mother, Abdennabi studied and became the principal of one of the largest high schools in the Allier and the only one in the department to have literary and economic preparatory classes. "Studies were something fundamental for my mother," he says. "She did everything to help us move forward in our lives and for her that meant studies."

From then on, the teenager focused on his studies. "In 10th grade, I got it into my head that only studies, and nothing but studies, would allow me to achieve the goals I had set for myself," he says. Encounters will also be of great help in his personal fulfillment. The one described as a competent but modest worker crosses the path of an Auvergnat physics-chemistry teacher. In Morocco, the latter was circulating the postcards he received from his native region, which prompted the young high school student to go study chemistry at the University of Clermont-Ferrand.

An organic chemistry professor also played an important role in his life. Following his advice, the scholarship student passed the competitive exam of the National School of Chemistry, still in Clermont-Ferrand. In 1992, Abdennabi Zaher, with a CAPES in physics-chemistry in his pocket, met Patrice Corre, then principal of Madame-de-Staël. "I told him I wanted to immerse myself in my teaching profession first. When I was appointed principal of Madame-de-Staël, he was the first to call me."

Both in France and in Morocco, Abdennabi Zaher has stood out for his professionalism throughout his career. He will be replaced by Béatrice Dufour, principal of the Souterraine school district, at the start of the school year.