The proportion of unqualified teachers in the public network is even higher than believed and exceeds 30,000 people, according to a report by Auditor General (AG) Guylaine Leclerc.
It is therefore more than a quarter of the 111,151 teachers identified in 2020-2021 who were not qualified, reveals its report.
The majority of them are supply teachers (25,276). This is followed by part-time teachers (2474), teachers by the lesson (2145) and full-time teachers (626).
In recent months, ministry data circulating instead reported some 3,000 unqualified teachers. However, this data only included those who had obtained special permission from the ministry to practice (this is called “commitment tolerance”). Of the number, we must also count the 26,743 others who work “without authorization” and about whom the ministry has “no information” as to their training.
To obtain a commitment tolerance, you must have a high school diploma and training “deemed relevant” at CEGEP or university. University students in education who practice before completing their studies are considered qualified.
Moreover, unqualified teachers work much less often than regular teachers. So even if they represent a quarter of the workforce, they account for only 8.3% of the hours worked in the network.
It is not known, however, whether the phenomenon affects more the secondary or primary level or even how English-speaking and French-speaking establishments compare in this respect.
The ministry singled out
The auditor’s team obtained this data after “extremely laborious work” of cross-referencing data, she explained, pointing out how little information the Ministry of Education had on unqualified teachers and their training.
“It’s very concerning,” she said.
Not only does the ministry not have clear data on the needs for qualified teachers and the issues related to the shortage, but it also does not have a “comprehensive and coherent action plan” to deal with them, notes- she.
“Several initiatives have been undertaken to alleviate the shortage,” writes the auditor. “However, these are managed piecemeal, without an overview”. She deplores it all the more since the “warning signs” of the shortage have been manifesting “for several years”.
This issue was notably raised in 2004 by the Superior Council of Education, almost 20 years ago.
However, the shortage is not without consequences, according to the principals of the schools surveyed by the auditor: reduction in the quality of teaching, lack of consistency in the interventions made with students who have special needs, increase in student anxiety, etc.
Representatives of the ministry (MEQ) told the VG that work had begun in 2022 to better document the shortage and that a “teacher needs forecasting model” was set up last winter.
Currently, the MEQ must collect information from each of the 72 school service centers (CSS) to obtain data. However, “as some do not respond to requests, the portrait is incomplete”.
The auditor, however, refused to throw the stone at the CSS whose staff, she says, is “overwhelmed”. It is above all incumbent on the ministry to act, she underlined.