COVID-19 | Student absences up 75%

Absences related to COVID-19 have started to climb again in schools. On Tuesday, there were just over 24,000 students absent for this reason, a 75% increase from the previous week.

Posted at 10:20 a.m.

Marie-Eve Morasse

Marie-Eve Morasse
The Press

According to the most recent report released Friday by the Ministry of Education, it is therefore 1.8% of students in the province who were not in school on Tuesday due to COVID-19.

Just over 1,600 teachers were absent for the same reason, but more than a third were continuing to teach from home. Two schools were closed and students in 43 classes had to go to school remotely.


After dropping in February and early March, absences related to COVID-19 started to climb again after the school break. The number of absent students, however, has nothing to do with what it was in early February, when schools counted 65,000 students absent due to COVID-19.

However, there are even more students absent from their class for reasons that have nothing to do with the pandemic: 6% of students, or 84,000 of them, were not in school on Tuesday.

The most recent data from the ministry was collected from 89% of schools in the public network and 81% of schools in the private network.

With Pierre-André Normandin


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