The average lifespan of a Minister of Education in Quebec is two and a half years.
Reading the Auditor General’s report, we understand why.
The overwhelming majority of substitute teachers are not qualified to teach, as there is no comprehensive plan to address the labor shortage. And continuing education? Forget it, we can’t release teachers for lack of substitutes!
If a CEO ran his company like the Department of Education, he would go bankrupt or be fired.
In the Ministry of Education, as in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed are kings!
Bernard versus Goliath
Faced with such a situation, can Minister Bernard Drainville’s reforms be enough?
Certainly, he will tighten the screws on the School Service Centers, put in place a plan to have reliable data and hope that his National Institute of Excellence in Education will finally take care of the quality of education and training.
Its fast track to the patent seems the only short-term solution for the rapid qualification of thousands of professors.
And what about the class aids that are eagerly awaited.
Down-to-earth solutions welcome in a normal world. But the education system in Quebec is more worthy of the twists and turns of the Vatican.
There are the popes of inertia, the cardinals of pedagogy, the bishops of inclusion, the priests of success and the sacristans of collective agreements.
Imagine, to draw her conclusions on the teacher shortage, the Auditor General herself had to collect data that already existed in the department. What? The civil servants had never asked themselves the question?
Sad truth, the “machine” is worse than that of Health. We dream of seeing the organization chart of Education. We bet it’s not a mammoth but a mastodon!
The right diagnosis
And if Bernard Drainville, political reality obliges, tried to treat the symptom rather than the evil?
When the appendixes to the collective agreements are almost longer than the main agreement.
When ministerial directives become band-aids on an open wound.
When an entire class must regularly flee to the library because of a child in crisis.
When young teachers are left behind in a dysfunctional system.
When students from private schools are twice as likely to access college studies as those from public schools.
When almost everyone, in private of course, agrees that our system has betrayed the ideals of the Parent reform.
When it no longer makes sense, will 8 priorities and a minimum of accountability for school boards really be enough?
Bernard Drainville hopes so. He does not have a choice.
However, even the Auditor General seems to doubt it. Especially when she deplores the absence of a plan that mobilizes the entire education network.
We understand that the minister is allergic to the idea of a great collective mass like the Estates General on education.
But he will have to figure out how to end the Chapel Wars that are holding our children and their future hostage.