A leader in the field of education in Quebec, Égide Royer never raises his voice. Maybe it’s because he’s the father of triplets, but he’s so serene you sometimes think you’re a Buddhist monk.
However, sitting with him around a coffee, we quickly feel that the staggering number of young people in difficulty in Quebec schools irritates him deeply.
In primary and secondary schools, there are currently almost 250,000. In public schools, which are more affected than private ones, that represents “about one in four young people”, he explains to us.
“We cannot continue to increase like this continuously. […] We can’t have a coffee in three years from now, the two of us, and tell ourselves that we’ve reached 265,000, ”he adds, calmly… but firmly.
We wanted to meet him when the education network finds itself with a new minister for the first time in four years. The flamboyant Bernard Drainville took over from Jean-François Roberge.
Because Égide Royer has made academic success — and therefore the success of our children — its priority. For a long time.
In two years, in 2024, it will pass the milestone of 50 years spent serving young people. A career that began in 1974, when he landed a job as a specialist educator in a youth center.
He then always stayed the course, guided above all by his desire to help young people who had difficulty adapting to school.
Not only is his expertise recognized, but his opinion has been sought for many years by elected officials (including several Ministers of Education) in Quebec.
And these days, his opinion is that the fate of students in difficulty must be made the priority of priorities.
He recounts how, during the Estates General on Education in the 1980s and 1990s, education was “rethought” without emphasizing students in difficulty – who even suffered from the most recent reform, he believes. .
It is however, according to him, the “keystone” of the whole system.
This time, if we have to think, to rethink, let’s focus on those who fail in school, who drop out of school and who are in difficulty in school.
Aegis Royer
Think about it: we know that there are approximately a quarter of a million young people who have difficulties in Quebec. But we also know that barely 40% of students with adjustment or learning difficulties (EHDAA) who enter secondary school will succeed in obtaining a secondary school diploma (DES) or a vocational studies diploma (DEP). ).
“We have to review how we take care of our young people in difficulty in Quebec. All the stars are aligned,” he says, pleading for a very short-term reform (within two or three years) of the school adaptation policy. It dates from 1999, when there were only 100,000 students in difficulty in our schools.
The problem of these young people is also one for the school system and for society as a whole.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
Our journalist Alexandre Sirois and Égide Royer
One only has to think of the fact that these students “are massively concentrated in ordinary public schools”, recalls Égide Royer. “There are teachers who are going to kill themselves with the task in there! »
Between this context and that which exists within the private schools or those of the public with particular projects, it is the day and the night.
This is what has been dubbed for some time “the three-speed school”, which is the cause of glaring (and documented) inequalities.
But we may not have seen anything, says Égide Royer. If we continue to let the situation deteriorate, we could well end up with a school… at four speeds.
Because if teachers in the public network no longer manage to manage the number of students with adjustment or learning difficulties, we could end up “opening more specialized classes”.
It is, according to him, “a real danger”. With this fourth gear, the inequalities would widen even more. Because “if you enter a specialized class at 7 or 8 years old, you tend to stay there”.
He does not question the existence of specialized classes in particular cases, but considers that they should not be generalized.
For him, all schools must take care of all students. And that’s all.
He thus considers that it is necessary to give “more responsibilities and more means” to the private sector so that it “contributes to the success” of a greater number of young people who have difficulties at school.
“I’m talking about welcoming young people who not only have a slight academic delay, low marks in French and mathematics, but really a natural proportion of young people with difficulties. »
This is not the case at present, he underlines.
In the same vein—that of the obstacles to the success of our young people—we ask him about the failure rate of Quebec boys. Some 30% of boys, after spending seven years in secondary school, have neither DEP nor DES.
In his opinion, it is important to find ways to interest primary school boys as much as girls in reading and to offer them models of educational success from an early age. “It won’t solve the problem, but it would help a lot,” he said.
Throughout the interview, Égide Royer peppers her remarks with concrete examples taken from the school network. At 68, he continues to devote between 20 and 30 hours a week to his passion.
He also remains connected to this network because of his own family. This father of four children – including triplets – is now the grandfather of 12 young people, the youngest of whom is in first year and the eldest, in CEGEP.
Does he have any specific advice to offer the new Minister of Education?
In addition to a rapid reform to help students in difficulty, he suggests the filing of a five-year plan to “bring our entire building stock up to standard”, including on the issue of ventilation. . And the filing of a five to ten year plan to “upgrade and increase the number of teachers”.
Not to mention that the new minister should find a way to get “a pretty clear picture” of the young people who have suffered the most from the pandemic in terms of learning (a recent report by the Auditor General showed how swimming in the fog). And wondering how to prevent the gap from widening even further between the strongest and the weakest in terms of success due to COVID-19.
Towards the end of the interview, Égide Royer also says he is concerned about a major trend at the moment: the number of young people who drop out too early, attracted by the world of work.
He believes that everyone, from elected officials to employers to chambers of commerce, must find ways to engage in curbing this trend.
And he persists in saying that we should make school compulsory until the age of 18.
“Why do we have so much difficulty in Quebec simply saying that we want our young people to be in a learning situation until the age of 18? he asks himself.
This is one of the many relevant and pressing questions which, it is hoped, will soon be answered by the new Minister of Education.
Questionnaire without filter
coffee and me “We have a very close relationship. I read five newspapers every morning and have my first two cups of coffee (drip coffee) while having breakfast and reading,” he says. He also has coffee at 3 p.m. “I have a routine. »
The last book I read “I read a lot of biographies or historical books. But this time, I’m reading something special: Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time. I had tried myself a few times, but I was discouraged after having passed the madeleines. There, I went to In the shade of the maidens in bloom. »
People I would like to gather around a table, dead or alive : “Alive: in psychology, it is surely Daniel Kahneman. Among those who died: economists John Kenneth Galbraith and John Maynard Keynes. And another, the great novelist Joseph Kessel. »
The qualities I like in others : “Exchanges and discussions. In the sense: I chat with you, I am interested in what you do and you return the ball to me, you are interested in what I do. »
What i hate the most : “People who, with a lot of confidence, are going to affirm something and who don’t know that they don’t know. »
Who is Egide Royer?
- A psychologist by training, he began his career in the mid-1970s — with the intention of helping young people in difficulty — in a youth center as a specialized educator.
- He was a psychologist — and in particular responsible for special education — for 10 years in a school board in Portneuf.
- He was also a professor of psychology at CEGEP and later responsible, at the Ministry of Education, for the file of learning and behavioral difficulties.
- Finally, for a quarter of a century, he was a professor at the Faculty of Education at Laval University, and today he continues his career as a psychologist specializing in education.