So that Quebec can consider paying for teaching internships, Quebec universities should allow their students to spend the entirety of their final year of baccalaureate in schools, declared Wednesday the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry.
“It’s a collective effort,” she said in a press scrum. “If we are able to have all the universities follow suit […] so that the last year [de formation] is done in class, obviously, it can make our task easier. »
Mme Déry cited the University of Sherbrooke as an example. There, all fourth-year bachelor’s degree students in preschool and elementary education spend the fall semester in class. For the past two years, a small cohort has also been able to remain employed during the winter session. Students follow their courses remotely at the same time.
This fall, 41 students out of approximately 150 are taking their final courses remotely. Among them, 25 do their internships “on the job”, for pay. The demand for these internships is greater than the supply. In other words, “there were more interns available for a contract than contracts available in the school service center [CSS] frequented”, underlined Duty Matthieu Petit, vice-dean of the Faculty of Education.
“The appreciation from the students [pour cette formule] is very high,” he noted. He said he believed that we should “take inspiration” from this flexibility, but he warned against the idea of applying this way of doing things everywhere. “It takes a lot of autonomy, a good commitment,” and it involves building new distance courses, often for small cohorts, in specific areas such as science teaching, illustrated Mr. Petit.
Interested students
Minister Déry’s proposal was well received by the president of the Quebec Student Union (UEQ), Étienne Paré. He was at the National Assembly to attend the debate provoked by the tabling of a motion from Québec solidaire, which asks Quebec to pay for the last internships of the baccalaureate in teaching “from the next budget”, in March. For the moment, the government has refused to commit to a timetable.
“We are looking to see if this is a good solution. […] We, until now, have not seen much inconvenience,” declared Mr. Paré to Duty. This proposal would have the particular advantage of being made at zero cost. “This is money that already exists: these contracts are given to [enseignants] not legally qualified,” recalled Mr. Paré.
The president of the UEQ, however, said he would like universities to maintain the current route for those who still wish to take it. In this way, “the student who is not ready to assume the workload [d’une année complète en emploi] could [rester dans] the regular progress. And we would have to find a way to pay for these internships,” he stressed.
Little success at UdeM
At Laval University, vice-dean of studies Christine Hamel explained that approximately 20% of teaching students do their final year internship “on the job”. In total, nearly 70% of students would like to be “employed”, but the CSS do not always have open positions that correspond to requests, she summarized.
Mme Hamel did not want to give his opinion on the remuneration of internships. But “we know that we have students who place themselves in situations of significant precariousness,” she underlined. To do this, the university is showing flexibility in allowing students to substitute in class.
The University of Montreal, for its part, said it had tested the University of Sherbrooke model, with a fourth year spent entirely in class. “This is an option that we had put forward in the past, but for which there was no enthusiasm,” wrote spokesperson Geneviève O’Meara. “We continue to collaborate with the government on this issue with the aim of offering the best possible training to our students,” she added.