The status of CEGEPs has changed surprisingly little since the creation of this network, more than fifty years ago. However, the CEGEP is often questioned, rightly or wrongly, with many lamenting this North American school peculiarity. We are not, however, alone in having this important level between secondary and university: Switzerland has its gymnasiums for three and four years, and the example of this institution should inspire Quebec.
To begin with, the Swiss gymnasium does not belong to higher education, but rather to post-compulsory education, in clear continuity with compulsory education. It must be agreed that the growth in graduation rates in Quebec since the 1960s no longer justifies categorizing college with university and that it would be logical to do as in Switzerland. Nothing here brings the gymnasiums seriously closer to the universities, any more than the CEGEPs, where there is almost no research.
So why maintain in Quebec this artificial belonging of college to higher education? Moreover, this shift from CEGEP to compulsory schooling would have the significant advantage of immediately legitimizing the application of language laws there, at a time when the fate of French in Quebec is perhaps being played out. As with Gaelic in Ireland, even independence may no longer be able to do anything about it. First, we take Dublin
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