The Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, points the finger at the arrival of temporary immigrants to explain the government’s delays in opening 4-year-old kindergarten classes.
In one year, Quebec opened 74 of these classes; there are therefore 1660 in activity, compared to 1586 at the same date last year.
At the same time, “we have 1,267 francization and reception classes for temporary immigrants,” Minister Drainville underlined on Wednesday. He said he was unable to open more 4-year-old kindergarten classes.
“We want to create classes [de maternelle 4 ans], but we need teachers, we need premises. And most of my staff, in certain school service centers, are mainly used to instruct new arrivals,” he lamented. “In some cases, I inaugurate a brand new school, there should have been 4-year-old kindergartens, and why aren’t there any? Because we have to educate a larger number of students than expected and in some cases, they are newcomers,” continued Mr. Drainville.
The teachers assigned to the “new francization and reception classes are teachers that I could use in other contexts, for example 4-year-old nursery schools. But I don’t have them,” he also said. In January, the minister said he feared that the federal government’s “open bar on immigration” would cause the “breakdown” of the Quebec education system.
Facing him, Liberal MP Madwa-Nika Cadet reminded Minister Drainville that the CAQ had been warned on multiple occasions — and before the increase in temporary immigration — of the difficulties linked to the opening of 4-year-old kindergarten classes. . “Was that a bad idea? “, she asked the minister. “It was a very good idea,” he replied, point-for-tat.
In 2018, the Coalition Avenir Québec committed to opening 5,000 4-year-old kindergarten classes for 2023-2024. Once in power, François Legault’s party instead committed to delivering 2,600 classes in 2025-2026. This promise was once again revised in February 2023, when the objective of 2,600 classes was pushed back to a possible third CAQ mandate, in 2029-2030.