The teachers who will teach the new Culture and Citizenship Québécois course, which will replace the controversial Ethics and Religious Culture course, have given a mixed reception to the provisional high school program whose The newspaper unveiled the outline on Wednesday.
• Read also: Here is the citizenship course that will replace the Ethics and Religious Culture course
The reactions are “variable geometry” among the members of the Quebec Association for Ethics and Religious Culture, a majority of whom are teachers.
“It’s really very fragmented”, launches its president, Line Dubé.
Positions are “very polarized,” she says. Some applaud the reading of new content, which is more diverse and places less emphasis on religious culture, while others are very worried about the changes to come.
sex education
Sexuality education, which will henceforth be integrated into this new course, arouses many reactions, particularly in secondary school.
In elementary school, it is the class teachers who will teach the new citizenship course, while they are already responsible for the content surrounding sex education.
In secondary school, the specialist teachers of the Ethics and Religious Culture (ECR) course, who will give the new citizenship course, have not been trained to teach sexuality education, underlines Ms.me Dube.
But this is “very delicate” content with which some are simply not comfortable, she says.
Half of untrained teachers
Training, more generally, remains an issue, according to the Association. Currently, only half of high school teachers who teach Ethics and Religious Culture are specifically trained to do so, according to a report from the Ministry of Education produced in March 2021, following a consultation in the school community.
“It is worrying for the students, the parents and the environment”, affirms Line Dubé, who considers that the “gap is abysmal” between a teacher specializing in ECR and a teacher of mathematics, English or physical education. who gives the same course. “We are not in the same universes”, she drops.
Mme Dubé also considers that the timetable – which provides for pilot projects starting in the fall with a view to implementing the new course in all schools at the start of the 2023 school year – is “far too fast” to do things correctly.
At the Federation of Education Unions (FSE-CSQ), we deplore not having been consulted on this provisional program. The teachers’ union became aware of the content by reading The newspaper Wednesday morning.
“Our great disappointment is to find ourselves faced with a situation like this again,” drops its president, Josée Scalabrini.
The latter regrets that the teachers’ unions are not closely associated with this process, since it is the teachers who are the first concerned by these changes, she underlines.