(Quebec) The Legault government failed to achieve its target of opening new 4-year-old kindergarten classes in Quebec for the 2022-2023 school year.
In the report on the implementation of full-time 4-year-old kindergarten, submitted Thursday to the Salon Bleu, the Ministry of Education reveals that school service centers and school boards have opened 241 new classes in 2022-2023, while the target that had been set by Quebec was 265. The government wanted to have 1,610 4-year-old kindergarteners in 2022-2023, it will ultimately have had 1,586.
Universal access to 4-year-old kindergarten for all children in Quebec, a key promise of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) during its first government election in 2018, has still not been achieved. During the last mandate, the CAQ pushed back its target of opening 2,600 of these classes to 2029-2030.
According to provisional data revealed Thursday in the report, 18,243 children were attending 4-year-old kindergarten for the 2022-2023 school year in the public network. The proportion of 4-year-old children who attend one of these classes is constantly increasing. It increased from 12.4% in 2020-2021 to reach 20.7% in 2022-2023.
In a report published last summer, the Ministry of Education outlined the complaints of teachers and school administrators, who deplored that the size of 4-year-old kindergarten classes, which can have up to 17 children, is too big. The report published Thursday states “there were on average 12.1 children per full-time 4-year-old kindergarten class, a number almost identical to that of the previous school year.”
Furthermore, managements and teachers denounced that they lacked resources such as psychologists, remedial teachers and speech therapists to support children with special needs. In some cases, the service offering has declined in recent years:
- 84% of school service centers offered speech therapy services to children in 4-year-old kindergarten for the 2022-2023 school year (this percentage was 87% in 2020-2021);
- 83% offered special education services in 2022-2023 (90% in 2020-2021);
- 76% offered psychoeducation services in 2022-2023 (79% in 2020-2021).
The coverage rate of services in psychology, health, social services and remedial education, however, saw slight increases. However, no complementary educational service is offered in all school service centers in Quebec.