The Legault government wants to tighten the content of training given to teachers.
The Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, spoke this way on Tuesday following revelations about training given to teachers in Saguenay.
Thus, the De La Jonquière School Service Center made participation in activities such as sushi classes, Zumba classes, residential plumbing, charcuterie, running workshops, etc. mandatory on October 20.
But the union challenged this decision so that registration was optional and not compulsory, and it won its case before an arbitration court with a safeguard order, according to what was revealed in the Quebecor newspapers. , Tuesday.
“They had to go to court for that: it seems to me that in terms of efficient use of the courts, personally I have seen better,” remarked liberal MP Marwah Rizqy while addressing the minister.
“There is a drift here,” she continued. Do you share the same disbelief? When you saw this decision in the newspaper, did you continue to have your coffee, or did you go: “ih!” »
The parliamentary committee is studying Bill 23 led by Mr. Drainville, which would set up a new National Institute of Excellence in Education (INEE), responsible in particular for offering continuing training to teachers.
Mme Rizqy raised “concerns” about the “professional autonomy” of teachers who, according to her, should be able to choose training.
Mr. Drainville carefully avoided commenting directly on the controversy over the activities offered in Saguenay, but hopes that recognized training relevant to the profession will be offered.
Of the thirty hours of continuing education that INEE would offer to each teacher, the minister would intend to prescribe three to six hours himself.
For the rest, he wants a “dialogue” between management and the teacher to agree on the appropriate way to “improve this or that aspect of his work”, in his words.
“What we want is for these training courses to be chosen from a selection of recognized training courses,” he summarized.
In an email to The Canadian Press, the press secretary of the Federation of Education Unions (FSE) was rather concerned about the minister’s intentions.
Sylvie Lemieux clarified that “the activities imposed on teaching staff in Saguenay are not part of continuing education.”
Rather, she sees a risk in Bill 23 if the minister chooses training activities instead of teachers.
The activities that have been denounced “however, shed light on what would happen if it were necessary for the Minister of Education […] allows you to choose your training activities in place of the teaching staff. Far from preventing situations similar to that experienced in Saguenay, the minister opens the door for them to also extend to continuing education,” she wrote.