The current shortage of teachers in our schools and the various solutions proposed to reduce it have caused much ink to flow in recent days, particularly since the announcement by TELUQ University of an increase in admissions to its new program. (DESS) in preschool education and primary education (EPEP).
On the one hand, it is claimed that the training offered to people who already hold a disciplinary baccalaureate is too long and that a 30-credit DESS could meet the current needs of the school and the students. On the other hand, we think that longer training better meets the needs of these people, particularly with regard to practical training (internships), in addition to ensuring that they will have developed many professional teaching skills to meet the challenges that await them in school.
Let us first recall how important teachers are. On a day-to-day basis, the influence they exert on students is considerable. A teacher will work on average for thirty years in the school network. Thus, a good teacher will exert a positive influence over a very long period of time on hundreds of children. In such a context, it seems crucial not to rush or rush their training before obtaining the teaching certificate, which must validate that the teacher has received complete training ensuring the development of their professional skills to the threshold expected to practice. his job.
Then remember that children, especially in preschool and elementary school, are fragile and malleable beings. They are real sponges that absorb everything they are exposed to. Rushing the training of teachers, who are responsible for their education, their socialization and their qualification, increases several risks: risks linked to the values that these adults convey, to their professional ethics, to their sense of justice; risks of a stagnation of the profession and the reproduction of inadequate pedagogical models; the risks of teaching the wrong ideas and misappraising the progress of learners.
Security risks, too, not only physical (scientific experiments in the laboratory), but also psychological (self-esteem, healthy lifestyles, etc.). Negotiating lower training expectations for teachers could therefore be very costly, humanly and economically, for a very long time.
Training a teacher takes time and must be done in an appropriate context. Teaching is a demanding human and relational activity that requires closeness, attentive presence and competence, all of these things that cannot be developed other than in co-presence, through interactive and resolutely reflective modes, and after having accumulated an important background of theoretical knowledge, proven by research, allowing to make the right gestures in demanding, delicate, diverse and changing situations.
The faculties of education have already proposed solutions to deal with the shortage of teaching staff. For example, UQAM set up a part-time ECEP training program in 2020 allowing work-family-study balance. UQAM and other universities have also been offering, for nearly a decade, qualifying master’s degrees for secondary education, accessible to people who already have a disciplinary bachelor’s degree. The faculties have also been working for several years on training scenarios in several stages that put future teachers to work, in the classroom, even before the end of their initial training.
The faculties of education also offer support in the form of continuing education, aimed at anyone wishing to improve their professional teaching skills and equip themselves to better support students. But to follow these training courses, the schools must be able to deploy favorable conditions and appropriate resources (including substitutes in the classes) which they are sorely lacking, due to the shortage. It’s a vicious circle from which we will have to get out one day!
The faculties of education will certainly be inclined to respond favorably to the clear requests of the Ministry of Education by implementing innovative formulas, such as longer-term support for teachers in professional integration. But lowering training expectations to respond to a short-term crisis, while the teaching profession continues to become more complex, this certainly does not constitute a lasting solution to the double problem of the quality of teaching and the constitution of a solid succession of teachers.