I don’t like to go on TV. But this time at Everybody talks about it, the subject: education, required me to be there to discuss with Gregory Charles, whose remarks, as we know, caused a lot of talk. In addition, Mr. Lepage and his entire team are very kind and reassuring…
I will allow myself here to come back to some of the things that I would like us to remember from our exchange and that I have not always had the time to develop.
Thinking about the education of tomorrow
Education is not going well with us. And the crisis that we are constantly going through will, for sure, further aggravate some of the evils that are eating away at it. We will have to, we must correct what is wrong. It should be a national emergency.
Mr. Charles expressed ideas and concerns about what is wrong that many share. I was glad he did.
But it goes without saying that this is a personal point of view, probably a little informed, as is also I hope mine, but which cannot claim to be the truth. In order to act, we will absolutely need the most objective portrait possible of the situation.
Some things like the lack of teachers or school dropouts are better known and documented. But many others will have to be carefully studied. If this work is done well, we will have these famous conclusive, reliable, objective data – even if they can always be improved.
Correcting these evils that we will have correctly identified will be a huge task.
To begin with, this requires agreeing on the ends and the facts alone do not give values, do not dictate the ends. Which ones to aim for? Why ?
Here again my point of view, like yours or that of Mr. Charles, cannot claim to settle the question. It concerns everyone, is everyone’s business and it is collectively that we will have to decide. How do you know what the community thinks? It will be necessary for that, beyond the groups of interest, to cause a vast democratic conversation, by which one will listen, exchange, inform oneself.
But that’s not all. Because once these purposes have been identified, we will have to decide on the best means to take to achieve them. Here again there is (often, but not always) evidence, this time that which credible research, conducted over many years, has identified. We must absolutely take this into account. They could, for example, teach us that our idea concerning non-mixed education will probably not give the expected results – without saying anything about the debates on the values and the aims that this proposal will provoke. Sometimes, we will learn that we have no or very little evidence and we will have to adapt.
There is more.
Because once a consensual end is targeted by means supported by credible research, by conclusive data, it may happen, surprise!, that things do not go as planned. To find out, we once again need conclusive data, that which is shown by the monitoring of the effects of what has been accomplished by the means deployed. This new evidence is that provided by essential results-based management.
Parent 2.0: promises and perils
Given the above, we know and I repeated it again on Sunday, I maintain that Quebec must engage in a vast and serious collective reflection on education, what I called a Parent 2.0 Commission. It is up to it to help us collectively decide on the ends we will aim for through education and the means to deploy to do so.
You probably know that the government did not launch this commission and community organizations, unions and other civil society groups have launched one. Suzanne-G. Chartrand and Jean Trudelle, among others, are behind this ambitious project.
I think that two perils lie in wait for him, two perils which by definition lie in wait for any undertaking of this kind.
The first would be to fail to rise to the height of the common good and to grasp and express what he wishes. Among the obstacles that can prevent it, we will find all these forms of corporatism and special interests.
The second would be to ignore, misunderstand, not take proper account of conclusive data, including that provided by results-based management.
We will see how the vast and imposing consultation that is getting under way fares.
She could shake up a lot of things. An example ? Some voices, faced with the shortage of female teachers and the massive recourse to people who are not legally qualified but who will have to be qualified, think today that the faculties of education have failed and therefore demand the creation of a kind of national teacher training institute.
A Parent 2.0 Commission could tell us if this is a good idea; how then to put it in place; and by what means to proceed to, as it should, evaluate its performance.
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So those are some of the most cherished ideas I wanted to put forward on Sunday. It was not always easy and I take responsibility for that.
At least here they are in writing.