Things are failing everywhere in education and we can now commonly see things that the most pessimistic among us would never have predicted not so long ago.
Here are three of the most disturbing.
A terrible state of affairs
To begin with, as we know, there is a shortage of teachers. What would have seemed incredible just fifteen years ago is now, unfortunately, true. Worse still: nothing, we can fear, suggests that the situation will improve, at least in the short or even medium term.
Among other things, the truth is that we haven’t even taken the time to know exactly what is causing so many trained teachers to leave the profession. In the meantime, we are increasing recourse to people who are not legally qualified.
Then, the same goes for all those stakeholders who had to help teachers work with these increasingly numerous students with behavioral problems or learning difficulties.
Our decision taken a few decades ago to incorporate them into regular classes was and is still being defended, but it required that we give teachers all the help that this absolutely requires. This has not been done and it seems at the moment that recourse to private firms is increasing.
Finally, as if the above were not enough, our schools, from a simple material point of view, are often buildings in a lamentable state. Also see what condition the one your child attends is in.
The negotiations
It is in front of this sad picture that the current negotiations were launched.
The government’s offer is undeniably laughable: it is proposing a 9% increase over five years.
This offer, which probably does not even cover inflation, is laughable in itself and becomes even more so when we take seriously the challenges we face. It is even more laughable, if at least that is possible, when we see what we offer to the Sûreté du Québec police officers (21%), what the deputies agreed to (30%) and that we remembers that Quebec has just offered nearly 3 billion to Northvolt for its battery cell factory — and on this side, it is not over.
It is therefore not surprising that very strong votes in favor of an unlimited general strike are currently multiplying.
I affirm that, whatever our political or ideological positions, we must support teachers. We must support them because to do so is to defend this threatened treasure: education.
A threatened treasure
In my opinion, what is at stake here goes well beyond this negotiation: what is at stake is what we will decide to do, collectively, with this fabulous heritage of the Quiet Revolution that is our system. of education. Supporting teachers means saying loud and clear that we want to protect them. And that we must have a lucid, broad and serious democratic conversation on this subject.
This, let us be aware, will also mean, in addition to the terrible realities recalled above, that we will lucidly confront challenges, problems and sensitive subjects, and even sometimes very sensitive ones, that we have been slipping under the carpet for too many years. years already.
Among them, both scientific and ideological quarrels over the methods to be recommended in teaching and over the training of teachers; the question of the relevance of continuing to finance a private network in competition with the public network; the effects of immigration (at primary and secondary level) and foreign students (at CEGEP and university) on the increase in school attendance and what follows; the decline of French in Quebec and in particular the number of students who transfer to English-speaking CEGEPs; our conception, today, of justice in education, of equality of opportunity and of what must be done to make it exist.
I will pass on this, of course, and in particular the whole question of the place of technologies in schools, including ChatGPT. But I think I’ll make myself understood.
To face these challenges, we need a strong affirmation of our attachment to a collective ideal of education. Right now, supporting teachers in what is to come means saying it loud and clear.
It is therefore not a simple question of salary that is at stake here, and if the teachers go on a general strike, I will be with them.
To defend our education system, to say how important it is, to demand that we talk seriously about what needs to be debated. And so that we act.
Doctor of philosophy, doctor of education and columnist, Normand Baillargeon has written, directed or translated and edited more than seventy works.