Quebec is emerging from a historic strike whose positive and negative repercussions could be felt for a long time. What means will be implemented to compensate for the delays accumulated by the students most affected by the closure of schools? The answer to this question risks generating more ink than new developments such as the classroom assistance project or the creation of an Institute of Excellence in Education.
1) Departmental exams adjusted due to strike?
Some students were more affected by the school staff strike than others. Those who attend an establishment whose teachers are part of the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE) have missed (more than 16 days) of school, compared to 7 to 8 days for those of the Common Front. Meanwhile, most private school students were not affected at all.
Will the ministry’s exams be adjusted to deal with this inequality? Will summer courses be offered to those who need to catch up? Will teachers be instructed to focus on “essential knowledge,” as was the case during the pandemic? To be continued.
2) Will we relive the panic over the lack of teachers in August?
Will there be a teacher in my child’s class? Many parents asked themselves this question at the start of the school year. As of August 23, more than 8,500 teachers were still missing across Quebec.
Beyond the staff shortage, one of the reasons behind this panic is the fact that many positions and contracts are awarded at the last minute, a few weeks or even a few days before the start of the school year.
Education Minister Bernard Drainville said he wanted to review this way of doing things, but the outcome of this issue will depend on ongoing negotiations with the unions.
Minister of Education Bernard Drainville, in April 2023
Archive photo Stevens LeBlanc
3) No more aggressor teachers who wander from one school to another
Minister Drainville tabled a bill in December aimed at better protecting students against sexual misconduct by school staff.
Until now, amnesty clauses allowed employees to see stains on their records disappear after a certain time, even when they involved serious misconduct. They could therefore change schools or employers without anyone knowing their background, according to a damning investigation report released this fall.
The bill provides for the end of these amnesty clauses and better sharing of information between school service centers.
4) The new ECR course taught to everyone
The new Culture and Quebec Citizenship course, which will replace that of Ethics and Religious Culture, will be given to all students starting in fall 2024.
The program will notably cover topics such as cyberbullying and sexuality education, while content dedicated to religious culture has been reduced.
Implementation in all schools, initially planned for 2023, has been postponed for a year. Teachers had in fact criticized the lack of training and manuals available.
5) Controversial creation of an institute of educational excellence
Minister Drainville tabled Bill 23 in the spring which provides for the creation of an Institute of Excellence in Education, which should be in place in time for the start of the fall 2024 school year.
This new organization will have the mandate to collect evidence and guide teacher practices. On the other hand, the Higher Education Council, which has made recommendations to ministers since 1964, will only focus on higher education.
Teachers and more than 240 professors, however, denounced this project, fearing that certain scientific research would be sidelined in favor of an approach favored by a minority of experts. Speakers also denounced the centralization of powers in the hands of the minister that Bill 23 allows.
6) More teaching assistants in the classroom
The classroom aid project could be extended to 15,000 primary school classes, but its implementation will depend on ongoing negotiations with the unions.
Highly appreciated in the field, this project was first implemented in around a hundred schools in the fall of 2022. It allows educators to spend time in class to support teachers, who must deal with an ever-increasing number large number of students with special needs. At the same time, this project allows educators to obtain more hours of work in a week, most of whom have a broken or part-time schedule.
7) Less paperwork so that students in difficulty have services
Work is underway to rethink the way of offering services to students with special needs.
Currently, services offered by speech therapists, psychoeducators, psychologists and other professionals are funded based on the number of young people with a difficulty code. Many students therefore have to wait to obtain a diagnosis before a professional can help them at school.
Bureaucratic relief was announced in 2020, but the project is still in development. It is currently being discussed at union negotiation tables.