The strike of 420,000 Common Front union members scheduled for December 8 to 14 will represent a headache for CEGEPs if it materializes and will certainly disrupt the school calendar, says the Fédération des CEGEPs.
“We have a headache, we’re going to tell each other,” says the president and CEO of the Federation, Bernard Tremblay, in an interview at Duty. There are no perfect solutions, and there are no solutions without drawbacks.”
CEGEPs must respect 82 days of classes in the fall session, “which does not leave much margin,” and establishments will have to evaluate different scenarios. “It’s certain that if there are these days of strike, it won’t happen before Christmas, it will be impossible to last the 82 days,” he says.
In establishments, the session could therefore continue after Christmas, until January, he said. The uniform French test, which is due to take place on December 13, will also have to be postponed. This option could, however, be complicated for students who were due to complete their training in December, particularly internationals, whose study permit could expire.
If such an avenue materializes, it will also be necessary to postpone the start of the winter session scheduled for January to give teachers time to correct and submit the evaluations.
To avoid these inconveniences, CEGEPs could instead ask the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, to reduce the length of the session. “It is not necessarily doing a service or facilitating success to reduce the number of days and not have properly integrated the knowledge,” however, mentions Bernard Tremblay.
He hopes for a rapid settlement of the negotiations.