O captain, my captain Legault! It is time to focus on the question of the shortage of personnel in education because legally qualified teachers are fleeing the milieu and are increasingly rare. After four years in power, your promise to make education a priority has paled today.
For the past few years, as soon as the new school year arrives, the same question has always arisen: will there be a legally qualified teacher in each class in Quebec? The answer is unfortunately no. Except that the role of a government should not be limited to watching the same situation repeat itself year after year. According to school administrators, up to 1,400 teachers will be missing for the start of the school year. The urgency to act for the long term is therefore very present.
When we look at the education system from a strictly mathematical point of view, it is normal that we lack legally qualified female teachers. The low enrollment rate in universities cannot compensate for the large number of resignations or retirements, often premature, in the school service centers of Quebec.
Labor market.Currently, there are many job offers that offer better salaries, competitive benefits, much less stress and that do not require evening and weekend work. The salary of Quebec teachers is below the Canadian average, and the starting salary is laughable when compared to other professions that require a four-year bachelor’s degree. The current inflation is all the more a reason to turn to a better paying job.
Kindergarten four years. In the midst of a staff shortage, the CAQ government chose to open hundreds of four-year-old kindergarten classes. In addition to increasing the need for female teachers throughout the network, it has not been able to adequately fund services, the acquisition of materials or equip schoolyards as they should.
Quebec schools.The majority of Quebec schools are not inviting buildings that stimulate learning. In Quebec, hundreds of premises are without windows and others do not have adequate ventilation systems. This is without mentioning the lack of maintenance, mold problems, the size of the premises and the lack of space in the majority of current schools. It is high time that school infrastructures are redesigned, refreshed and that we bring in the XXIe century.
Task. In recent years, we have witnessed the constant increase in the workload of teachers. The number of students with special needs has skyrocketed while much-needed professional and support services for students are not available in sufficient quantity. Group size in a context of lack of services is also a very serious problem.
One might think that it makes no sense to call for more professional or support staff services and smaller group sizes in a context of staff shortages. I think the opposite. The only way to reverse the current trend, ie to retain longer the teachers already in employment and to attract many others, is to rethink the organization of the service.
In fact, it’s simple and it boils down to this: what if we let the teachers teach? Because currently, the system kills the passion of thousands of teachers who go to work elsewhere.
As a society, it is urgent to question ourselves and to act, because the crisis we are going through will not be solved only with advertising campaigns or slogans like “Let’s continue”. In fact, by continuing, we go straight into the wall!