(Montreal) Experienced educators can’t take it anymore. Many are exhausted, on sick leave, planning pregnancies to take advantage of a break, or simply choosing to leave the profession. They ask the government to move from words to deeds to promote their profession.
“Can we be aware of what it really represents? Sometimes they should [les ministres] come, they should get out of their office,” says Émilie Dechamplain, an educator from Rimouski and instigator of “Valorisons ma profession” in her soft voice. This movement, which aims to recognize the “essential contribution” of educators in Quebec, went to Parliament Hill to assert its demands and brings together several thousand members in a private Facebook group.
Mme Dechamplain has been an educator since 2015 and is visibly annoyed because, according to her, the government has made little effort to keep the workforce in daycare centers and attract more qualified workers.
According to her, the increases granted recently by the government are “insulting”, compared to other professions with a college education.
I have colleagues who left to become secretaries. They earned the same salary, but they weren’t mentally and physically exhausted at the end of their day, it’s still a good gain.
Émilie Dechamplain, educator
Currently, the salary of a qualified educator varies from $21.60 to $30.04 per hour under the latest agreement with the government.
Mme Dechamplain, who is currently on maternity leave, agreed to speak to The Canadian Press about her job along with two other educators, Mariève Péloquin and Élizabeth O’Farrell, who launched the movement with her.
According to them, although the issue of the labor shortage in childcare services is increasingly present in the public arena, the government has not moved from words to action.
“When we celebrated our second anniversary of the creation of the movement [en mars 2023], we wondered. What is happening ? How come it’s not progressing? asks M.me Peloquin.
“How is it that the government did not take the bull by the horns to stop the bleeding, and say: “We heard you, we are there with you. ””
The problem is getting worse
According to specialist Nathalie Bigras, the bleeding is getting worse in daycare services.
Mme Bigras, professor in the didactics department of the Université du Québec à Montréal, is in contact with the managers of the facilities, and she observes that the most exhausted educators and at risk of throwing in the towel are the most experienced, who accumulate 10 with 15 years of experience.
They are tired, exhausted from the workload. They tell us that the workload has become too heavy.
Nathalie Bigras, professor in the didactics department of the University of Quebec in Montreal
It is also these experienced educators who must welcome new recruits, who have not always received the same training as them.
And the problem is all the greater as the government opens new facilities and there are not enough educators to meet the demand, she added.
“Managers tell me: ‘I replace one day, the next day I have to resign. “It doesn’t stop. »
Retention does not appear to be better for new recruits. According to data from M.me Bigras, among all the educators who leave the profession, 50% do so during the first year.
The professor is also co-researcher of a research project entitled FARE (loyalty and attraction of new recruits in early childhood) to obtain the impressions of new educators, who have between 9 and 18 months of experience, but her team is struggling to get answers, which she says is a clue to the problem.
The instigators of the “Valorisons notre profession” movement believe that in order to keep the workforce and attract a motivated succession, the government must stop seeing daycare centers only as a daycare service, and really consider them as an educational service for toddlers.
“When you’re compared to goalkeepers, it’s sure that people who come to us say to themselves: ‘Well, it’s going to be easy, I’m going to watch them play.’ But it’s not that in reality, “said Elizabeth O’Farrell.
They therefore insist on the importance of raising salaries, but also improving the conditions of educators, with pedagogical days and more weeks of vacation.
Best Portrait for Admissions
If in the daycare centers themselves, the picture does not seem very bright, we observe a slight lull in the side of admissions in early childhood education.
In recent years, we have noticed a marked drop in admissions to CEGEPs in Quebec. In the Montreal region, from 2017 to 2021, the number of admissions rose from 1,053 to 775, according to figures from the Regional Admissions Service of Metropolitan Montreal (SRAM). In 2022, this figure has quietly risen to 866.
At the Service régional d’admission au collégial de Québec (SRACQ), which brings together CEGEPs from across Quebec, admissions increased from 268 in 2019 to 329 in 2021. In 2023, we had also observed an explosion in admissions — to 1212 — due, it is said, to international demands.
The government has implemented measures, including scholarships, and CEGEPs are considering several options, including an intensive college diploma (DEC), and measures to facilitate work-study balance.
But this is not yet enough, notes Karine Robert, president of the Association of Teachers in Childhood Education Techniques (AEETEE).
According to Mme Robert, the government should place more value on the DEC in early childhood education. “All the studies currently show that the quality of a childcare service is closely linked to the level of training of the people who work there,” she said.
She deplores in particular that since 2021, the government requires that only a third of educators be trained.
“We have been saying for a long time that it should be three out of three. Nurses are three out of three,” she explained.
“There may be a child who goes from nursery to five years old in an environment with someone who is untrained. For him, it’s all his early childhood,” she added.
Educator Émilie Dechamplain believes that this measure has necessarily lowered the quality of services for children.
“We picked up with people who had no training and who should never have been in charge of a group,” she lamented.