The Legault government repeats that education is its “priority of priorities”. Paradoxically, the worst performers in the restructured version of its public administration performance dashboard were the ministries of higher education and education, two areas well aware of what are goals… and numbered report cards.
In our school system, even at two speeds, students in difficulty remain those for whom we mobilize the most energy and resources, even when there is a lack of them everywhere. These students are the subject of intervention and success plans, they are offered complementary educational services, as well as support from a host of professionals.
We cannot say that we feel a similar investment on the part of the Legault government, whose boots are struggling to follow their chops in this sector intended to train the minds of tomorrow. Just last week, a report told us what CEGEP teachers know all too well, that young people, many young people, can leave high school without knowing how to read or write.
While citizens are multiplying the forums in parallel, the Estates General demanded by a growing number of stakeholders in the community are inexplicably rejected by the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ). The portrait drawn by all these people is not unfairly darkened, however, if we judge the data posted online by the Secretariat of the Treasury Board.
In its encrypted bulletin, the Ministry of Education only achieved 41% of its targets, for an overall score of 58%. It’s not much, especially since there are many broken promises that are far from trivial. Its report card is weighed down by anemic ratings of 24% for the quality of its management of financial resources and 50% for the quality of its integrated risk management.
Higher Education does even worse, with an overall score of 47% and only 16% of targets achieved, which places it in last place in this thankless exercise. Notably, its report is weighed down by mediocre marks for the same two missions: 21% for the quality of its management of financial resources and 50% for the quality of its integrated risk management.
Used well, clear data can help make better choices, innovate and anticipate turbulence. But it is easy to divert them, even to instrumentalize them – talk to the provinces that have seen their health data requisitioned by the Trudeau government in exchange for enhanced transfers. Above all, it remains a tool, not an end. And this tool can go no further than what is asked of it.
A little over a year ago, the Auditor General painted a portrait of a Ministry of Education navigating on sight in a pea mash, unable to accurately portray the learning delays inherited from the pandemic. . In the multitude of indicators selected for this exercise, we do not really find a satisfactory answer to this question or to that of the mastery of our language by schoolchildren, which suggests that his report card could have been worse (or better) if other indicators had been chosen.
The dashboard still has the merit of debunking received ideas. We know that the Ministry of Health is struggling to put out the incalculable fires that burn its network. His report card shows a student who is also struggling (19e of 21 ministries, just behind the Family). It nonetheless boasts great successes, with an overall score of 67% for a number of targets reached equivalent to that of Education. At the other end of the spectrum, the Ministry of Tourism shines at the top of the class.
This is another limitation of the exercise. Bottom-line departments are departments that manage humans. Their challenges are far more complex. This does not prevent that, even for them, the targets can pull government action upwards when they are in line with the priorities of Quebecers. We saw this with the enrollment in a family medicine group, the target of which was recently reached before the deadline.
These same targets can similarly push government services to the brink. We do not yet know everything about the roots of the crisis at the SAAQ, but we can imagine that its eagerness to give birth to its painful digital transition has not helped. His bulletin also shows a drop of 16 percentage points in one year. For those who were still looking for it, this is another sign that the state corporation was losing control.
Perfectible, the dashboard can do better by being more precise, better aligned with the priorities of Quebecers and, above all, monitored more closely by decision-makers. The aridity of the figures will also have to be accompanied by a more serious qualitative analysis. Above all, the obsession with quantifying everything should not evacuate the purpose of this exercise: to get things done. Not blowing the straps or discourage the dunces.