Air quality in schools becomes an absolute priority under Bernard Drainville. The minister said on Friday that “there is not a file on which I have put more time and energy”.
He had invited journalists to a press briefing specifically on ventilation, during which he revealed that one percent of classes in Quebec were still problematic.
According to its most recent data, 724 classrooms have an average weekly CO2 concentration that exceeds 1500 parts per million (ppm). Seventy-two classes smash the 2000 ppm.
Mr. Drainville recognized that the ideal target was 1000 ppm. This fall, between 76% and 84% of premises had CO2 concentrations below this standard.
The minister also acknowledged that the situation will get worse this winter, when schools usually close their windows.
“When the cold weather arrives, these figures are likely to be less good. Let’s be honest. Will it still be 1%? Probably not,” he said.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of ventilation in schools had grown enormously. Mr. Drainville’s predecessor, Jean-François Roberge, was accused of minimizing the problem.
“I appreciate the new minister’s change of tone,” Liberal Education Critic Marwah Rizqy tweeted on Friday. Finally it is not a “folder inflated with helium”. »
Without going so far as to criticize the former minister, Bernard Drainville said that he had quickly asked his officials: “What are you doing? What are we doing ? »
He sees as a positive step the fact of having installed CO2 readers in the 68,548 classrooms of the province in order to measure the quality of the air there in real time.
“We have installed CO2 readers everywhere. […] We installed air exchangers wherever we were asked to install them. The situation is not ideal, the situation is not settled, but it is relatively under control.
“Talking about ventilation also means talking about the fact that our schools are aging and we must continue to make large investments,” according to the Minister of Education.
Faced with the “wave of infections in Quebec”, he advises schools in the meantime to open their windows this winter, despite the cold, taking into account “student comfort”.
“Three years after the start of this saga, […] that we are still in the process […] to open the windows for a third winter, it is distressing”, reacted the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE).
Its president, Mélanie Hubert, recalls in an interview that the data provided by the minister are averages, and that the concentrations of CO2 in the classes often reach “1700, 2000 ppm”.
However, she says she appreciates Mr. Drainville’s seriousness.
“Mr. Drainville this morning seemed much less jovial than Mr. Roberge may have seemed in recent years. I felt that Mr. Drainville was not trying to tell us that everything was fine.
“He seemed rather aware that the problem was important and that it was not solved yet. It’s still a change of tone that is interesting, ”she said.