Education has always been a priority for the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ). First as a holy trinity, with health and the economy, then as a quintet, with the addition of the environment and identity. Since 2018, the Legault government has made sincere efforts to free up or stretch budgets, document needs and dust off education structures. If only this government were a better marathon runner; too many students suffer from flying starts that end up marking time or dropping out.
This is the case these days, when the education community feels it has had its wings clipped twice by Quebec since the start of the school holidays, noted our reporter Zacharie Goudreault. Once with the unexpected reduction of a little over $400 million in the amounts already allocated to counter the deficit in maintaining the school network’s buildings. Then again with the refusal to renew a school catch-up plan that students still badly need.
Boosting academic success that looks as poor as ours would require unwavering persistence on the part of the government. Just last month, the Institute of Statistics confirmed what everyone feared: that the pandemic has indeed dragged down the most vulnerable students, to the point of causing a surge in high school dropouts. Last winter’s teachers’ strike added to the difficulties of many, to the point where the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, urgently came up with a tailor-made solution with the community.
This solution has seen the hopes that had been placed in it blossom in abundance, a real tour de force. The figures speak for themselves: no fewer than 483,751 interventions had been recorded during an initial assessment carried out last April. The pace has continued so well that teachers have been able to observe a positive effect on both the motivation and perseverance of the targeted students — two cardinal virtues essential to their success.
Schools and teachers note, however, that the hoped-for recovery is far from over. The school year will therefore resume at the end of August with a host of yellow and red lights that teachers refuse to turn a blind eye to. Hence their interventions with Minister Drainville. Contacted by The dutyhis office recalled the exceptional nature of this catch-up plan, which was never intended to be renewed.
It seems relevant to recall here, however, that when this same plan was announced, Minister Drainville insisted on his desire to be “guided” by “the needs of the students”. He said that, to do this, he would rely on the school teams, who, in his opinion, were “best placed to assess the needs of our students” and imagine original ways of meeting them. His only wish: that there be no proverbial “wall to wall”.
The minister’s wish was granted: in recent months, a host of innovative projects have emerged at the student level. This is the spirit that we want to perpetuate today, because it has made it possible to maintain “educational conditions conducive to the educational success of all students,” summarizes the Cardinal-Roy school board in a letter to the minister, whose The duty got copy.
Success: the magic word is there. Just as it is also hidden somewhere in the $409.2 million cut without warning from institutions, forcing the suspension of renovation work and the layoff of architects and engineers whose services were eagerly, if not urgently, awaited. Leaking roofs, peeling ceilings, ventilation problems, budgets for the elimination of vermin exploding; not all learning environments are optimal in Quebec.
It is precisely 56% of the buildings in the school network that are considered to be in poor or very poor condition. However, in the current Educational success policyit is written in black and white that the quality and performance of educational services also depend on “the physical organization of living spaces” and on their “accessibility” and their “security”. We dream out loud in this policy of “classrooms with good lighting, healthy air, acoustic comfort, an adequate temperature and a layout well adapted to needs”.
The problem is that the Legault government is not cutting into the icing by cutting these millions, it is cutting into the budget intended for the maintenance and repair of already fragile infrastructure. This hoax is all the more surprising since it had until now sent out contrary signals by taking by the horns the bull of renovations that its predecessors had not been able to rein in.
Without realizing it, these two decisions announced amidst the indifference of the summer once again cast doubt on the CAQ’s definition of the word “priority” when it comes to slipping it into a sentence that also contains the word “education.”