(Québec) Le gouvernement Legault lance une « offensive majeure » pour recruter 18 000 nouvelles éducatrices en services de garde éducatifs à l’enfance et respecter sa promesse d’ajouter 37 000 nouvelles places subventionnées dans le réseau d’ici au 31 mars 2025.
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Le ministre de la Famille, Mathieu Lacombe, convient que les éducatrices sont « épuisées [et] tired” after two years of the pandemic and that they need reinforcements more than anything. “People have understood that you are not people who are there, very relaxed, drinking your coffee while watching children who play,” he said Monday in a joint press briefing with the Minister of Labor. , Jean Boulet.
As of September 2022, students enrolled in CEGEP in early childhood education techniques will be eligible for Perspective Québec scholarships. Those who obtain a certain number of credits by having taken their courses full-time will thus be able to receive up to $9,000 in bursaries for all of their studies.
Educational childcare services will also obtain financial support this spring in order to release their staff already present who wish to have their skills and competencies recognized in order to obtain an Attestation of College Studies (AEC).
“The subsidy paid to the employer will allow its educational staff to be freed up to complete an application file, prepare for assessments and follow the missing training, if necessary, while maintaining the employment link with the employer. employer,” explained Quebec.
With this measure, the government hopes to qualify 7,000 educators already working in the network, which is in addition to the objective of training and recruiting 18,000 new educators by 2026.
Call for retirees
The Minister of Families, Mathieu Lacombe, also called on Monday for retirees from the daycare network to return to work in this period of labor shortage. To convince them to return to service, the government is granting them a bonus of 6.6% which will be in effect until March 2023.
” [Pour les attirer], you have to be attractive. I think that the educators who are currently on the job will greatly benefit [de leur retour], justified the minister.
The president of the Federation of Early Childhood Workers of Quebec (FIPEQ-CSQ), Valérie Grenon, believes that it is “unrealistic” to attract a large number of retirees to the network, especially since the fifth wave of COVID-19 infections hit educational childcare services.
On the other hand, “we are happy that the minister is aiming for the qualification and importance of professionals in early childhood [et] we want it to work and we want to get our hands dirty, ”said Mme Grenon. Last December, the government reached an agreement in principle with the early childhood sector providing for an 18% salary catch-up for educators.
New trainings
Quebec is also deploying new training to attract workers to the early childhood network. One of them, lasting 90 hours, will be used to fill the jobs of unqualified educators.
“People who take this training could be eligible, under certain conditions, for the temporary increase in income support for training, in the form of an allowance of $475 per week. This training can be part of a longer path leading to qualification and will be offered throughout the college network, ”explained Quebec on Monday.
Refresher training will also be offered next September to people who wish to reorient themselves to work in early childhood and who already hold a relevant diploma to do so.
The announcements made Monday by Quebec complete the plan for child care centers announced last fall. The Legault government then promised to create 37,000 new subsidized places by 2025 in order to complete the network.
According to Geneviève Bélisle, Executive Director of the Association québécoise des centers de la petite enfance, the plan announced Monday is important, but it will above all have to be explained to employers and workers “because these programs are dense, complex and there there are a lot of them”.