Bernard Drainville felt the need to speak, even if he doesn’t know exactly what to say yet.
One must be generous to qualify his document presented on Thursday as a “plan”. It’s more about guidance.
Since his appointment in October, the Minister of Education has been extremely discreet. He toured the schools and tamed his files.
Unlike his predecessor Jean-François Roberge, he started from afar. In 2018, the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) had an ambitious program, with the abolition of elected school boards and the establishment of 4-year-old kindergartens. And as a former teacher and critic of the opposition in education, these issues were already familiar to him.
Mr. Drainville inherits a half-blank sheet. The CAQ’s commitments were more modest in the last campaign. Among them: increase by 2 billion the budget for the construction and renovation of schools, improve vocational training and improve the teaching of French.
Since the beginning of January, my colleagues Marie-Eve Morasse and Louise Leduc have revealed that the failure rate in ministerial examinations had jumped and that students in difficulty went directly from 5e year from primary to secondary. The minister had to show that he was doing something, hence this exit.
Mr. Drainville thus repeated three known promises, in addition to revealing four other intentions: to accelerate the training of teachers, to hire support staff in the classroom, to improve the collection and sharing of information at the Ministry and to increase the programs specific to the secondary.
He does not yet know how to achieve this or at what cost or in what timeframe.
If Mr. Drainville had laid out a complete and detailed plan in 100 days, it would have been said that he was improvising and not consulting the groups concerned. And if he had kept silent, he would have been blamed for it too. By giving a taste of his program, he has the merit of launching the debate.
A priori, his announcement seems both hurried and cautious. It avoids divisive issues like the three-tier system. He does not want to think about the foundations of the education system. Rather, he is looking to plug the loopholes and make quick wins.
Its orientations seem quite consensual. But in education, nothing is simple. Looking closely at them reveals future tensions.
The most concrete announcement from Mr. Drainville is the return of accelerated training. For example, it would authorize a bachelor in history or literature to follow a one-year teacher training course to obtain his teaching certificate.
If experts are happy about it, the deans of the faculties of education will be suspicious. They are already wary of the idea of allowing third-year students who have failed their French test to do their internship in class – they could take the test again afterwards.
According to Mr. Drainville, the shortage justifies it. It is indeed alarming. By 2030, almost 40% of teachers will retire. And it is estimated that between 15% and 40% of young teachers leave the profession after five years.
To tackle the crisis, there is no miracle solution. We must promote the teaching profession and improve working conditions.
Mr. Drainville wants to add classroom helpers, such as a volunteer daycare educator. A pilot project is currently being carried out in 100 schools. Reinforcement will be welcome. But if millions of dollars are earmarked for this measure in the next budget, unions could find that a piece of the pie escapes them. And that will not compensate for the lack of remedial teachers and other professionals.
For the rest, it is in the renegotiation of the collective agreement that the working conditions will be settled. At least they are off to a better start than in 2018. This time, they are not being asked to work more hours – in addition to those done voluntarily at home… Still, tensions often come to light when the negotiation progresses .
The employer wants to review the classroom ratios, which had been reduced in elementary and early secondary nearly a decade ago. Teachers like Sylvain Dancause have already shown themselves open to increased flexibility, for example with higher ratios for lighter classes at the end of secondary school.
It would be interesting to anchor this debate in scientific research instead of relying on the negotiations of the negotiators. Nevertheless, the more teachers feel discredited, the more the current crisis will be aggravated. Mr. Drainville, who is not responsible for the negotiation, seems skeptical.
The French file will also be less consensual than expected. Nobody will oppose the special budget for the purchase of books, but shields will be raised if the minister asks that the faults be corrected in the primary in all courses or if he proposes to restore to 50% the weighting of the end-of-year ministerial exam.
And finally, there is access to data. It’s amazing: the minister himself does not know how many teachers are missing in the network, nor even the proportion of students per year who are failing at school!
Each school service center collects its data, with computer systems that are sometimes antediluvian. And when everything goes to the Ministry, there is no rush to share the news with the population.
Mr. Drainville does not want to be the great reformer. He stays away from the project to launch a Parent 2.0 commission. But when he details his menu, we will realize that he has his hands full. And you’ll understand why he didn’t open his game in January before he was able to respond to every criticism.