Last fall, 125 teachers in the riding of Bernard Drainville gave him a letter in which they listed what was wrong with the network.
Excerpts from this letter were recently quoted by PQ MP Pascal Bérubé, as part of the parliamentary committee on Bill 23, which is yet another reform of school governance.
“They say: ‘Our passionate colleagues are exhausted at work in overcrowded and increasingly complex classrooms’; the workers, beyond the question of wages, demand real recognition of the profession at its fair value. They say that young teachers leave the profession before the first five years. They denounce an increasingly glaring lack of resources in so-called ordinary programs for the benefit of so-called special public and private programs,” reported the MNA for Matane-Matapédia.
The MNA’s observation is also that of several actors in the network: the current legislation does not offer remedies for these problems, which are among the most urgent in education.
They are right.
Of course, the National Institute for Excellence in Education, which will be created by the bill, will be an asset for the network. We have already supported and explained it.1
It will be able to shed light on practices in the education sector, as the National Institute of Excellence in Health and Social Services does for the medical community.
But beyond the establishment of this new institute, what we are discussing in Quebec during the parliamentary committee, are peripheral subjects to the fundamental issues.
We are talking, for example, of the standards according to which certain educational services can be offered at a distance.
We are witnessing sometimes heated exchanges on the number of hours of training that could be imposed by Quebec on teaching staff, as opposed to those that could be chosen freely.
Oh, these are important questions, of course! We cannot avoid these discussions. But anyone who thought that Bernard Drainville’s education reform was going to address critical issues should probably lower their expectations.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Bill 23 tabled in May by Bernard Drainville “is perfectible and it is to be hoped that the Minister will take care to improve it”.
Because there is not enough mention in this bill of “real business”, as the new minister would probably have said when he was commenting on the news on the radio.
Not to mention that some of the announced changes go against what would be desirable for the network.
Why the hell are we trying, for example, to centralize even more, when we haven’t even taken stock of the governance reform carried out by Jean-François Roberge three years ago?
In particular, the bill seeks to entrust the Minister with the appointment of directors general of all school service centers in the province and the power to overrule decisions made by these bodies.
Why are we trying to atrophy the Higher Education Council by reducing the scope of its mandate (it would henceforth deal strictly with higher education)? Created in 1964 at the same time as the Ministry of Education, this organization is an ally of the minister, even when it acts as a check.
Of course, this bill can be improved and it is to be hoped that the Minister will make sure to improve it in the wake of the numerous recommendations obtained from the parliamentary committee since last week. But he will not be able to go so far as to modify the content.
One would have thought, while Christian Dubé is presiding over a real overhaul of the health care system, that Bernard Drainville would also put forward an ambitious reform in education with the aim of having a major impact on the ground.
This is not what we are witnessing here, even if the National Institute for Excellence in Education will certainly lead, in the medium term, to better practices.
At the very least, let’s hope that, failing to solve the network’s most serious problems with his bill, the minister will not create new ones.