General education at CEGEP is in crisis. Deemed boring, even too difficult, its beacons of literature and philosophy are struggling to enlighten cohorts of students who are turning their backs en masse. Untouched since 1993, general education no longer has what it takes to face today’s obstacles, confirms the working group on these “challenge courses”. In a highly anticipated report, it calls for nothing less than “a national project” “now”.
This sense of urgency is in tune with the impatience expressed by students, professors and experts in the college environment since the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ) published its devastating memoir in March 2023. It revealed with dismay that this training — whose first courses in French and philosophy are burdened by unacceptable failure rates — is today considered “uninteresting” or even “boring” by 53% of those who take it. A disaster for persistence as well as for academic success.
In the process, the Ideas section of the Duty had been overwhelmed with thoughts inviting us to think about updating general education. This excitement, shared as much by the fierce defenders of tradition as by the ardent supporters of renewal, had not seemed to win over the Minister of Higher Education. Putting herself in reserve of the Republic, Pascale Déry had said she was waiting for the report of the working group, planned for the summer of 2023, to make up her mind.
The group kept its promise by submitting its report at the end of June of the same year. It took the minister a full year to make it public in the deafening silence of a summer-like Friday. As for the sense of urgency, we’ll have to wait. As for action, too. Mme Déry simply confirmed that his “ministry intends to look into certain recommendations that concern it” and announced meetings with the network this fall.
This year spent in the shadows has not allowed any significant progress. However, there is enough to make sparks fly in this 230-page report which invites us to dust off current prices without distorting them.
The network does not need a revolution, this group of seasoned teachers and educational advisors immediately asserts. Rather, it advocates a necessary return to the primary purpose of this teaching, “made of memory, time and space in an era that only has them for the moment”, by means of a completely renewed approach where we will seek less to accumulate knowledge than to generate experiences. In itself, this is already a turnaround.
However, there is no question of succumbing to the sirens of an à la carte offer inspired by humanities dear to the Anglos. In this, the group adopts the vision of the sociologist and philosopher Edgar Morin that “the current structure of programs that encourage a kind of disciplinary lobby and a fragmentation of knowledge into disciplines contributes to the erosion of humanist culture and the problem of general ignorance.” We are grateful to him for this.
Otherwise, the bias of “versatility” claimed by the Parent Commission still holds, especially in a world with landmarks as shifting as ours. Literature and philosophy remain in fact valuable keys to finding one’s way. These challenging courses, when they hit the mark, not only promote success in other courses, but also help to nourish the imagination and critical thinking necessary to become active, empathetic and engaged citizens.
The working group nevertheless notes several pitfalls, two of which are decisive. The first concerns the disparities that are widening within student populations in terms of reading and writing as well as in terms of autonomy, maturity and learning strategies. This is a poisonous legacy of the three-speed school system, we read in this report, which advocates that the improvement of “knowledge and learning of the language be generalized and integrated into all disciplines”, in higher education as well as upstream, from secondary school.
This change of direction also calls for a range of intensified aid and support measures, diversified, even atypical, and even extended pathways, revised student/teacher ratios and the careful screening of students at risk of failure. All this sounds right and good, but it highlights a second pitfall, just as cardinal: funding that is inconsistent with current needs.
Philosophy and literature courses have posed challenges since their introduction. Nearly six decades later, it is high time to consider them for what they are: essential, non-negotiable foundations for higher education and the health of democracy. Revaluing these springboards urgently, and by all means, will at the same time allow us to articulate a more positive relationship with the French language, which is in great need of it.