Once again, and without much surprise, we learn that 52% of students fail in spelling and grammar during the Secondary V French test. And to top it off, this lamentable result was obtained when the student can consult a dictionary, a grammar book, and a collection of conjugations.
We bet that this news has upset the bonzes of the Ministry of Education who are no doubt busy finding a scapegoat to explain such a fiasco. However, the culprits are them and their predecessors.
Result
For several decades, the department has made the graduation rate its priority.
However, as Goodhart’s law indicates, “when a measurement becomes an objective, it ceases to be a good measurement”, because it becomes the object of manipulations in order to improve the result. This is, moreover, the incentive created by the Ministry by stipulating that raising the graduation rate requires “that all players […] feel united by an obligation of results”.
Thus, to achieve the said result, the “actors” leveled down and sold off diplomas, but they forgot that one always reaps what one sows.
However, today’s teachers are the product of yesterday’s diplomas. And as one cannot teach what one does not know, the failure of the pupils betrays the shortcomings of the teaching body. We understand better why many of them are calling for a simplification of grammar!
Excellency
Excellence never proceeds from nullity. The Ministry cannot therefore hope to raise the level of French without requiring a rigorous upgrading of its teaching staff and the evaluation of the latter.
Moreover, to interrupt the degeneration of public education caused by the reforms adopted in the name of so-called “progress”, Quebec should change its paradigm and favor the quality of diplomas rather than the quantity.
Interrupting the downward march is possible. But who will have the courage?