Called to order by the Ministry of Education, the Montreal School Services Center (CSSDM) has finally decided to signal the end of “at home” hours in its accelerated training programs to become a beneficiary attendant or nurse auxiliary.
“We will comply with ministerial direction. The remote portion of the schedule will be adjusted to in-school attendance time,” CSSDM spokesperson Alain Perron confirmed by email.
The CSSDM had previously defended its practices. He has since been reprimanded by the ministry and the education minister. A union grievance was also filed against him because of this practice.
The duty reported in November that the École des trades des Faubourgs-de-Montréal offered accelerated programs to become a beneficiary attendant or practical nurse that included “at home” hours in a proportion of up to 17% of training time. These hours, which are funded by the Ministry of Education, were not allocated to teachers. The Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, then expressed his disagreement with this practice, which the opposition parties had also denounced, while demanding reimbursement for the funded hours.
The CSSDM, for its part, defended its right to offer teaching services “through various methods of training”.
However, a recent document signed by the Deputy Minister of Education, Carole Arav, takes stock of this practice. “The hours devoted to each skill include time for teaching (by the teacher, in person), assessment of learning, enrichment or remedial teaching. Homework is excluded from the number of hours planned for the study program,” it is written in a January bulletin intended for all general education directorates.
Mme Arav also writes that “the duration of study programs as well as that associated with each skill are determined based on the time necessary to learn the tasks of the trade or profession.” It specifies that “the order of the skills taught as well as the time associated with each of them can be adjusted”, but that “the duration of the study program prescribed by the Minister of Education” must be respected.
A union grievance
The Montreal Teachers’ Alliance also confirmed Duty that a union grievance was filed at the Faubourgs-de-Montreal Trade School and at the Administration Trade School, where “at home” hours had also been established.
“Management failed to distribute teaching hours scheduled for the “Support for Assistive Care in Long-Term Care Facilities” and “Health, Assistance and Nursing Care for Teaching Staff” programs,” the union wrote in its grievance, in reference to programs allowing people to obtain positions as beneficiary attendants and auxiliary nurses.
The situation, the grievance reveals, is the same in the “Sales-consulting” program offered at the School of IT, Commerce and Administration.
“In fact, by providing that a certain number of funded hours be completed by the student without the presence of a teacher, the employer particularly, but not limited to, contravenes [à quatre clauses] of the collective agreement,” continues the union, citing clauses associated with priority of employment.
The CSSDM had set up “at home” hours to “meet the needs of students in a context of family-work-study balance,” spokesperson Alain Perron wrote in an email. He added that this practice constituted a “pilot project”.