The 2024-2025 budget bears the mark of the labor conflict that shook the education network in the fall. It devotes a 9.3% increase in spending to education, a significant jump explained by savings of half a billion in salaries during the strike, then by the 300 million allocated to the catch-up plan for students in difficulty.
The strike allowed the Ministry of Education to save 510 million in remuneration, more than the funds allocated in January to the catch-up plan. Without this saving on salaries, growth in education spending would be 6.7% in 2024-2025, we read in the budget documents tabled on Tuesday. This is nevertheless an increase in budgets, since the increase was estimated at 6% last year.
“By the way, it’s exceptional. We really want to improve the quality of education services,” underlined the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, whose budget, which is in deficit, crowns education as “the government’s first priority”.
The growth in education spending can be explained in particular by the creation of accelerated – and paid – training in the construction field. The bulk of education spending, which takes up 15% of Quebec’s budget, is devoted to measures to “promote the educational success of young people”.
Of the 819 million in the overall envelope over five years, 188 were not budgeted last year, but have already been granted in 2023-2024, especially to “support students in difficulty returning to class”, after the strike.
Transform governance
The measures to “support student success” total 545 million over six years, including the expenditure of 188 million already announced. They include 16.4 million over five years dedicated to pursuing the “transformation of school governance”. Among the anticipated expenditures in this category are those associated with the deployment of a National Institute of Excellence in Education. “You have seen the dashboard: what we have managed to do in health, we will have to do in education,” declared Minister Girard. Its budget recalls the government’s desire to create a “system for filing and communicating information” in the Education network, and announces that of introducing “management and accountability agreements” in school service centers.
In the short term, “before the expected effect [des nouvelles conventions collectives] is felt”, Quebec plans 114 million over two years to “keep retired people from the education network in employment”, “make part-time positions more attractive” and “support and accompany” teaching staff. The budget proposes to pay retired people who work as substitutes based on the salary scale corresponding to their experience and education. He also recalls that Quebec wants to deploy “classroom aids” in 14,000 classrooms, from 5-year-old kindergarten to the end of primary school.
The condition of Quebec schools is also improving slightly. Thus, 56% of school buildings in Quebec are in poor condition, compared to 61% last year and 59% the previous year. “Despite significant investments in recent years, several schools remain aging,” recognizes the government, which is devoting $100 million to the maintenance of school buildings by 2028-2029.