Like those currently rife in many other fields, the teacher shortage is at the heart of the debates in Quebec. This shortage is neither sudden nor recent. Several government and research indicators predicted it from the late 1990s. It was exacerbated by certain factors such as the opening of 4-year-old kindergarten and the pandemic which precipitated the departure of legally qualified people, a teaching certificate.
One could believe that this shortage is the result of an imbalance between the needs of the education system in terms of teaching staff and the number of qualified people. This is a simplistic reading of the phenomenon, because it is now recognized that this shortage stems largely from the dropout of teachers and the lack of attractiveness of the profession.
A precarious situation
Quebec society already knows that because of difficult working conditions and inadequate support for professional integration, 25% to 30% of new qualified teachers leave the profession after the first year of teaching and until 50% after five years. What’s more, dropping out is no longer limited to young people. More experienced people are throwing in the chalk, as the requirements have steadily increased.
The education system is bleeding out. We cannot continue to hire more staff by skimping in particular on the quality of training, knowing that they in turn risk dropping out.
In terms of attraction, the situation is far from rosy. University teacher education programs are experiencing a historic decline in the number of students enrolling in them. Between 1996 and 2018, this drop reached 15% in teacher training at the primary level and 40% at the secondary level. In other words, fewer people choose to follow a university education to embrace a profession with a precariousness rate of 40%, unenviable working conditions and often negative media coverage. Quebec thus finds itself with a devalued profession marked by an exodus from both ends. What to do ?
Known solutions
Fortunately, the research speaks volumes in this regard. Since working conditions are key to motivating people to enter and stay in the profession, policies are needed that target the attraction, recruitment and retention of qualified teachers to reduce attrition and improve student academic success. . We must ask ourselves the following questions: is Quebec ready to demand quality education for all students by guaranteeing newly qualified people a reasonable job? Is he prepared not to give new teachers the most demanding classes and contracts refused by the most experienced? Is it ready to provide them, as soon as they graduate, with full-time positions leading to tenure to get them out of precariousness? Is he ready to invest more in their professional integration?
A reduction in training is not the solution
If we believe the statistics reported in the media, we can say that the damage has already been done in Quebec. The shortage is hitting harder than ever, and the industry is increasingly calling on people who are not legally qualified. Classes where alternates follow one another have become commonplace. It is certainly a national tragedy. It is becoming urgent to train and qualify these people without lowering the requirements associated with obtaining a patent. It is not by slashing training that the professionalization and retention of people who are not legally qualified will be ensured.
Research shows that poorly trained people are less prepared to face the challenges of the job, and therefore are more likely to drop out.
For qualification purposes, a master’s degree in teaching (60 credits) is the minimum to ensure that the skills defined by the Ministry are “largely mastered” and that the people who graduate are able to teach all the areas of learning at the elementary level as required, once again, by the Ministry. Training qualified teaching staff requires time and resources. However, this investment is nothing compared to the fact of not being able to count on a generation of young people capable of reading and writing adequately in French, of reasoning using mathematical and scientific concepts, and of becoming responsible citizens. . As a society, we must give this opportunity to all students in Quebec.
Finally, in the other fields experiencing a shortage, no one is talking about reducing the training associated with them. Would we agree to halve training in medicine or engineering? Why do we have to accept it when it comes to education, a key area in any social project?
* Co-signatories of the Student Associations of the Faculty of Education of the University of Montreal: Frédérique Dufresne, President of the General Association of Students in Education; Savanah Hamaoui, President of the Association of Secondary Education Students. From the management of the Faculty of Education at the Université de Montréal: Cecilia Borges, Vice-Dean of Graduate Studies and Research; David D’Arrisso, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Faculty Secretary; Nathalie Loye, vice-dean for development and continuing education; Josianne Robert, Vice-Dean of Undergraduate Studies; Rachel Berthiaume, Director of the Department of Didactics; Nadia Desbiens, Director of the Department of Educational Psychology and Andragogy; Frédéric Yvon, Director of the Department of Administration and Foundations of Education. Professors of the Faculty of Education at the University of Montreal: Geneviève Barabé; Olivier Bégin-Caouette; Sebastien Beland; Nathalie Bisaillon; Marie-Eve Boisvert-Hamelin; Marie-Claude Boivin; Francois Bowen; Christine Brabant; Genevieve Carpentier; Sylvie Cartier; Christophe Chenier; Daniel Daigle; Martial Dembele; Sarah Dufour; Micheline Joanne Durand; Marc-André Ethier; Naomie Fournier Dube; Alejandro González Martin; Catherine Gosselin-Lavoie; Canisius Kamanzi Peter; Fasal Kanouté; Rola Koubeissy; Sarah Landry; Alexandre Lanoix; Julie Larochelle-Audet; Amelie Lemieux; Francisco Loiola; Marie-Odile Magnan; Elodie Marion; Lyne Martel; Bruce Maxwell; Gabriel Michaud; Diana Miconi; Isabelle Montesinos-Gelet; Adriana Morales; Joelle Morrissette; Elizabeth Olivier; Garine Papazian-Zohrabian; Melanie Pare; Bruno Poelhuber; Emmanuel Poirel; Maurice Tardif; Marie Theriault; Nathalie Trépanier; Jesus Vazquez-Abad; Isabelle Vivegnis