Primary and secondary school children are returning to school next week. With just days to go until the start of the school year, it is shocking to see that there is still a shortage of 3,858 teachers. Meanwhile, more than 10,000 fully qualified and experienced teachers are left on the sidelines due to disability.
Some are even willing to pay to return to their posts.
All Catherine Boivin wants is to get back to work. An assistant principal at a Saguenay high school, she has been on sick leave for four and a half years due to a serious lumbar problem.
With our healthcare system being overloaded, she had to wait two and a half years for surgery. Unfortunately, the surgery was only a partial success. A new surgery is needed.
But guess what? His surgeon now works in the private sector, like 260 specialist doctors in Quebec, a number four times higher than 10 years ago. It is high time for the government to curb this exodus that is eating away at the public health network.1.
Catherine Boivin made a multitude of approaches to other specialists and even to her MP. In vain. Finally, she will have to pay $40,000 out of her own pocket for a private operation in Montreal.
Frankly, it is unacceptable that a worker who has paid taxes throughout his career should be forced to dip into his savings to obtain private care… which will allow him to return to work in the public network.
How many workers are stuck like this? Surely a lot, because 161,000 Quebecers are waiting for an operation. There are also 845,000 people waiting to see a specialist, 60% of whom are late.
Not only are these people suffering, but many are unable to work. We are talking about teachers who could be taking care of children in class, nurses who could be treating patients in hospital…
The health shortage is exacerbating the labour shortage across the labour market. As a society, we are going around in circles, like a dog chasing its tail.
But back to education…
In 2022-2023, there were nearly 22,500 people on disability leave in the network, including 10,761 teachers. In total, almost one in ten workers (8.8%) are absent, according to figures provided by the Ministry of Education.
Roughly speaking, absenteeism in our public education system is twice as high as what is observed in the entire labour market in Quebec (4.3%) and Canada (3.6%), according to Statistics Canada data.
Absenteeism, which has been growing steadily for 30 years, is a serious public health problem that costs employers and taxpayers a lot of money in salary insurance. It is often the visible part of a harmful work environment, as highlighted by the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ).
In the world of education, teachers will tell you that the burden and complexity of the task creates fatigue and stress. By taking their work to heart, some teachers end up burning out and getting sick.
The central issue is the composition of classes, with the explosion in the number of handicapped pupils or those with learning difficulties, which has increased from 103,000 in 2000 to 258,000 today.
In secondary school, a third of students fall into this category. It is therefore not uncommon for a teacher to find himself with 10 or 15 students who need an intervention plan requiring special measures in a single class.
In another era, students with difficulties were grouped into smaller classes with a specialist in school adaptation. But these specialized classes have been emptied, in pursuit of a laudable objective of social integration and equity.
At the same time, repeating a year has become taboo. Many young people therefore move from one year to the next without having truly succeeded in the program. After a few years, catching up becomes an almost insurmountable challenge.
By trying to put all students in the same mold, we only create losers. We demotivate those who struggle in regular classes, without having all the support they need. And we prevent others from developing their full potential, because the teacher no longer knows where to turn.
Quebec is ripe for a thorough reform of school adaptation, for the good of young people and teachers2.
Improving working conditions in schools could reduce the number of workers who go on sick leave. Prompt treatment of sick employees could help them return to school quickly.
If we were to halve the absenteeism rate in education, to bring it back to the labour market average, we would solve the labour shortage… from within.
1. Read the editorial “Dear Patient, I’m Going Private…”
2. Read the editorial “Miracles Can Be Done in Schools”