Quebec must imperatively look into the composition of student groups, says the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE), according to which it is the most urgent problem in education. At its “source”: government funding of private schools, says the teachers’ union.
In an editorial interview with The Pressthe president of the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE) calls for public schools to be “a social project”.
“We hear the minister [de l’Éducation, Bernard Drainville] tell us that private school is the free choice of parents. It is the free choice of parents who have the means and students who perform enough to get there, ”retorts Mme Hubert.
And when “it doesn’t work [dans le réseau privé]the students have returned to the public network,” she adds.
And with special educational projects that “often end up” selecting the best students and contributing to skimming, ordinary classes suffer, deplores the FAE.
Last week, the Minister of Education estimated in an interview with the Duty that “the thesis on the three-speed school has an ideological bias”, before finally qualifying it as “conceptual bias”.
In interview with The Press last January, the minister affirmed that 44% of students in Quebec were in a specific project at the secondary level and explained his desire to multiply them in public schools.
Mélanie Hubert says that she is not against specific projects, but calls for breaking down the barriers that hinder the accession of certain students, “students in great difficulty who find themselves in classes overloaded with students like them”.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, ARCHIVES LA PRESSE
Mélanie Hubert, President of the FAE
That’s what we don’t want. The system is escaping [ces élèves] and it is endorsed from above, by the Ministry itself.
Mélanie Hubert, President of the FAE
“We are not creating a disaster scenario,” says Daniel Gauthier, vice-president of labor relations at the FAE. “The composition of the classes means that the learning of all students is currently slowed down and jeopardized,” he says.
The position of the FAE is clear: the financing of the private sector by Quebec must cease and social diversity in the classes, “it is the key”.
One of the sources of this problem, or one that exacerbates it, is the funding of private schools and the fact that in secondary school, parents can choose other paths.
Daniel Gauthier, vice-president of labor relations at the FAE
The FAE calls for the opening of more specialized classes to the public. In secondary school, 32.8% of students who attend public school are handicapped or have social maladjustments or learning difficulties (EHDAA). In the private network, this proportion is 19.3%.
“A false solution”
The Autonomous Federation of Education represents more than 60,000 teachers in the province, who are currently in negotiations for the renewal of their collective agreement, which expired on March 31.
The FAE deplores that the Minister of Education finds “easy answers” to more complex questions, for example in the case of class aids, which Quebec wants to see come as reinforcements in schools. This will mainly be employees of school daycare services. “It’s a false solution,” says the FAE.
Faced with more and more students who have learning disabilities or behavioral problems, it is special education technicians that teachers need to support them, says the FAE, who regrets that many have left the ship in recent years.
Class support is “like Bill 23” tabled in early May, says Mélanie Hubert. “From above, we will decide what is good and it will go down the system at all costs,” she said.
Bill 23 provides, in particular, that the Minister of Education may overrule decisions made by school service centers if they “break away” from the government’s vision.