Bill noh 23 which has just been tabled by Minister Bernard Drainville is a setback for teachers in Quebec. It aims to strengthen the powers of the Minister, school service centers and management with regard to teachers in the areas of continuing education, distance education, the pedagogical approach and initial training.
In 2019, Minister Jean-François Roberge added to the Education Act that each teacher choose the continuing education activities that best meet their needs in relation to the development of their skills. When Bill 40 was passed by the National Assembly, he summed up the effects of this change as follows: “We come to write in full, in the Education Actthat we recognize the great pedagogical expertise of teachers, […] that we recognize that it is they and no one else who chooses their continuing education. »
For years, we have noticed that we are increasingly being forced to provide training that is not necessarily relevant, that does not meet needs or that takes up time that could have been better used. The 2019 changes were supposed to put an end to this situation, but Minister Drainville wants us to go back. It amends the law to allow school principals and school service centers to decide, on behalf of teachers, what training is best for them.
Professional autonomy is much more than holding the pencil when the time comes to count our training hours!
The pandemic has clearly shown us the limits of distance education. In certain circumstances, particularly in vocational training and general adult education, this mode of teaching can have advantages. However, this is often not the case. Co-modal teaching, with responsibility for students remotely and face-to-face at the same time, is particularly problematic. With the new bill, Minister Drainville gives himself the power to impose both.
For a diversity of currents of thought
As teachers, we are the experts in pedagogy. We are trained to be able to choose the right teaching methods according to the students, the programs, the learning context and the resources available. With the abolition of the Superior Council of Education – whose opinions often displeased the political power in place – and the creation of a National Institute of Excellence in Education (INEE), Minister Drainville will give the right to a certain current educational research to impose its point of view. After having had the socioconstructivist approach and pedagogy by reform project imposed on us, it is now that of the “effective school” that we will be trying to impose on us as the only valid way of doing things.
Let us remember that education is a human science where a healthy diversity of currents of thought coexist, which sometimes oppose each other.
The creation of the INEE also led to the abolition of the Accreditation Committee for Teacher Training Programs (CAPFE). This independent committee was responsible for ensuring the quality of university teacher training. In a context of shortage where the Minister wants to radically reduce the pedagogical training of future teachers, it was important to maintain this independent body to guarantee a certain level of quality.
We fear that the creation of the minister, the INEE, which will now play this role, will be much more docile and open to reductions in initial training for teachers, which will devalue the profession.
Minister Drainville does not seem to consider that teachers are professionals who, with high-level training and experience, have the expertise to make the right choices for student success. This bill manifests the influence of the administrative apparatus and of certain researchers who were able to impose their point of view.
An inescapable issue in education is the shortage of qualified teachers. There is an urgent need to make the profession more attractive and to retain practicing people. We need to value the teaching profession, and this requires, in particular, respect for our professional autonomy and our expertise. Unfortunately, the Drainville reform is heading in the opposite direction.