This text is part of the special Back to School notebook
Quebec announced in 2020 the abolition of the Ethics and Religious Culture program. Four years later, it is finally at this start of the school year that the new Culture program and Quebec citizenship will be offered in all primary and secondary schools in the province. Dialogue and critical thinking are at the heart of the themes addressed in this new program.
Created by the Liberal government of Jean Charest in 2007 in the wake of the deconfessionalization of schools, the Ethics and Religious Culture (ECR) program was intended to replace religion and morality courses in Quebec institutions. Faced with criticism that religion played a predominant role in this initiative, the Coalition avenir Québec government declared in 2020 that it would replace it with a program that focused more on secularism.
The new Culture and Citizenship of Quebec (CCQ) program, taught during the six years of primary school and four of the five years of secondary school (it is not offered in the third year of secondary school), has three objectives. It aims to prepare students to exercise Quebec citizenship, to enable recognition of oneself and others, and to pursue the common good. It is divided into several themes: citizen participation and democracy, legal education, eco-citizenship, sexuality education, self-development and interpersonal relationships, ethics, digital citizenship, and the culture of societies.
During the 2022-2023 school year, a temporary plan was tested in 29 schools in the province. The Ministry of Education offered training to teaching staff so that they could take ownership of “the main foundations, purposes, skills and major themes of the provisional program.” This initiative was expanded in the fall of 2023 and winter of 2024, during the optional implementation year of the program, explains Esther Chouinard, responsible for media relations at the Ministry of Education (MEQ). After these two years of testing, the new program is now mandatory in all schools in the province.
The ministerial training courses developed in 2023-2024 are available on the ministry’s YouTube channel, specifies Mme Chouinard. Other training and support opportunities from the MEQ will be offered over the next year.
Exercise your judgment
Part of the initiative aims to teach students to evaluate sources, information and arguments, as well as the characteristics of current Quebec culture. In elementary school, culture and dialogue will be addressed, among other things. And in secondary school, students will learn about ethics, citizenship and sociology.
“The CCQ program does not aim to provide specific answers to complex ethical questions, but rather aims to develop critical thinking and the ability to engage in free and caring dialogue,” we can read in an information note for parents written by the MEQ.
“The program promotes democratic principles, the secular rule of law and the values of equality and respect for human dignity set out in the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms,” it adds.
Better future citizens
The Institut du Nouveau Monde (INM), an organization whose goal is precisely to increase citizen participation, took part in the consultation set up by the Ministry of Education after announcing its intention to revise the ECR program. Its executive director, Malorie Flon, is pleased that citizenship education is the common thread of this new path.
“We see a lot in our programs about equipping young people to participate in this democratic life, to exercise their citizenship in different forms, by finding the form that will best suit their interests, their personality. It meets a need that is expressed by young people: to understand and find their place in this society. And this, so that they can make sense of this society that they are discovering and that they want to shape in their image,” explains Mme Flon.
Previously, notions about how democracy works were taught later, in geography and history classes in the third year of secondary school, she recalls. Emmanuelle Biroteau, an advisor in transfer of expertise for the INM, also observed several gaps in the young people she met in the fourth or fifth year of secondary school, as part of workshops offered by the INM: adolescents’ knowledge of understanding democracy was often deficient.
Teacher requests for the INM’s civic education program, which is subsidized and offers free classroom workshops, have exploded during the last school year, the two colleagues note.
“It was a special year for us because we were unable to meet all the requests that were submitted to us,” explains Emmanuelle Biroteau. “We already have enough for the school year that is starting, but, again, we will see what we can provide! There is a lot of interest.”
This content was produced by the Special Publications Team of Dutyrelevant to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part in it.