This text is part of the special Private Education notebook
In 2019, Quebec had one of the lowest secondary school graduation rates in Canada and below the average for member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. While the vast majority of students attend public schools, school dropout rates are also rampant in private schools. However, these establishments have more latitude and resources to help the students most at risk.
“It would be a lie to say that school dropouts are non-existent in private schools,” says Éric Deguire, director general of Collège St-Jean-Vianney in Montreal and president of the Association of Directors General of Private Schools in Quebec. However, he points out that this scourge is less prevalent there.
In Quebec, for the year 2021-2022, the dropout rate was 18.2% in public schools and 8.2% in private schools, according to the most recent data from the Ministry of Education.
For the cohort of new private education enrollees in 2015, 94% of students, from all institutions, completed their secondary studies, in data spread over seven years, again according to the Ministry of Education. This rate drops to 90.4% when calculated over five years. “Depending on the definition we have of dropping out of school, there are still some, between 6 and 10%, who do not obtain their diploma within the usual time frame,” observes David Bowles, director general of Collège Charles-Lemoyne, which has campuses in Sainte-Catherine and Longueuil, on the South Shore, in the Montreal region.
“Since there are tuition fees in the private sector, the socio-economic background from which students come may have less impact than it can have in public schools in certain neighborhoods or regions,” adds the man who is also president of the Federation of Private Educational Institutions and author of the book Reflections of a school principal. To inject a dose of academic perseverance in Quebec.
An educational model to be reviewed
For Mr. Deguire, regardless of the school, public or private, the traditional education model leads some adolescents to drop out along the way. “If there are young people who drop out, it is linked to the way of learning,” he believes. This is perhaps also one of the reasons why the dropout rate is a little lower in the private sector. In short, “we are trying to distance ourselves from the lecture method where we find a person in front of 30 students who listen to him [passivement] “.
The school principal believes that motivating students involves personalizing learning for each of them. “That’s the challenge because the teacher is all alone. It’s complicated to work in 30 different ways,” he concedes.
A good way to achieve this, according to Éric Deguire, is to establish special educational programs, even for young people with learning difficulties. “They each have the right to participate in a project 75 minutes a day in addition to their classes, no matter which one: it could be a science academy, football. For another student, it could be multi-sport or improvisation,” he illustrates.
Mr. Deguire also deplores the fact that some establishments set a minimum grade to authorize a student to take part in such a program. “It is often the weakest who does not have the motivation to go to school and who would, therefore, need this type of activity the most to persevere for five years,” he argues.
Tailored interventions
The theory that private schools only accept good students is a myth, says Bowles. Instead, private schools have the advantage of having a certain flexibility to adapt their interventions to students at risk of dropping out, he says. “We can organize our resources where there is the greatest need, react very quickly and be flexible in terms of the service offered,” he explains. “And that helps us a lot.”
Mr. Deguire agrees. He also debunks the idea that private colleges have more financial resources than their public counterparts. “Sometimes, it’s even the opposite,” he says. “But we are much more autonomous and we manage things locally with employees and young people. When there is a problem, everyone concerned is already at the school. I don’t go to a service center. I don’t have to wait. I think that promotes the well-being of our students. And when we feel good, we do better.”
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