I have often said and written that the shortage of teachers that we are experiencing in Quebec is a national tragedy. I maintain it.
Unsatisfactory answers
Another tragedy is the cruel lack of credible data to describe what is really happening in education. A recent report from the Auditor General of Quebec reminded us of this, this time about the learning delays caused by school closures during the pandemic. On this crucial subject, said this report, we still do not have a reliable portrait of the situation. This is unacceptable.
Back to the teacher shortage. How many are missing, exactly? Or ? In what areas specifically?
If we are to believe the Ministry of Education, in 2021-2022, there would have been 4,783 teachers without a certificate hired under a teaching tolerance. It’s serious. But a recent study indicates that the situation is likely to be much worse. If we count substitutes and people hired by the lesson without a certificate, teachers who are not legally qualified would have been in 2018-2019, hold on tight, 30,466, or more than a quarter (25.2%) of the total. all active teachers. Add to that the effects of the pandemic, retirements, and try to convince me that this is not a drama that we should have seen coming…
Minister Bernard Drainville, knowing all this and taking it seriously as it is his duty to do, asked that the universities set up training that would allow them to react quickly and correctly. The faculties of education, which do not seem to have foreseen the extent of this national tragedy, as it is nevertheless their role to do, had responded to it by creating a qualifying master’s degree.
A master’s degree, in a university network funded by pipe head and where higher education costs more to the public than undergraduate studies, it seemed like a funny decision to me. I had imagined, naively, that these faculties would have declared a state of emergency, given courses on weekends, in the summer, during holidays, online, and evacuated courses with questionable content. But no.
Worse: we have hardly documented the success rate of this master’s degree (60 credits, and not 45, excuse the little…), but we can reasonably think that it is too long and that too few people complete it. .
It could also be the same thing with bachelor’s degrees in education. But, for lack of reliable data, we don’t really know, just as we also don’t know what drives so many trained people to leave the profession during their first years in practice.
Imagine the reaction if all this happened in our faculties of medicine, engineering, law…
A proposal that should be encouraged… and followed closely
At the Minister’s request, among 13 faculties of education, only TELUQ responded. I believe that it is no coincidence that this response comes from people who have been defending, for years, the use of evidence in education and the monitoring of interventions.
I also believe that it is no coincidence that the reactions to their proposal are so divided: it is generally welcomed by people in the field and strongly criticized by the faculties of education. Some school service centers (CSS) in a region in Quebec have even recently expressed their desire to end the agreements they have with the university, among other things because the university orientations still do not include, in 2023, evidence and scientific research…
What does TELUQ offer? A specialized graduate diploma (DESS) in preschool education and primary education of 30 credits inspired by what TELUQ did at the CSS Marguerite-Bourgeoys, and which worked well. This program, offered online and asynchronously, also relies on original collaborations with the community. It will open in September, accommodate up to 1,000 people who are already teaching, who have a relevant bachelor’s degree, but who are not legally qualified. The course lasts three years and includes eight standard courses and two training courses.
The program ensures that it takes into account the teaching evidence, but also that concerning the value that this type of training (short and non-traditional) can have, compared to the usual longer training. The designers of the program cite, among other things, research that analyzed the effects of an alternative program (Teach for America) over a period of more than 10 years.
It was absolutely necessary to react to the national tragedy. What TELUQ is proposing has the merit of being a credible proposal — and we dramatically lack credible proposals.
It remains to be seen, of course, how all this will turn out in practice. I trust that the people who designed this program, followers of evidence, will do everything possible to make it a long and serious follow-up according to the principles of results-based management.
We will certainly learn important things that may well, who knows, inspire faculties of education in the future.