Once a month, Le Devoir d’enseignement wants to offer enriching contributions, whether they come from researchers and practitioners in the education sector or from other people who have reflected on the state of our education system.
In 1966, the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Education in the Province of Quebec, better known as the Parent Commission, submitted to the Quebec government the final volume of its report which would serve as a guide to implementing educational reforms. successive. In the wake of the projects of the Quiet Revolution, the development of education was not only considered as an essential key to the training of a qualified workforce and the modernization of the economy, but also and especially as an instrument of social justice.
“He who learns gets richer”, such was the slogan conveyed by the liberal government of Jean Lesage with the aim of mobilizing the Quebec population to go to school and improve their living conditions. The Parent reform underlined the urgency of establishing a school system capable of meeting the growing demand for a qualified workforce in a rapidly industrializing society and an economy that is more diversified than ever.
In order to reconcile economic development and social cohesion, the school system envisaged by the Parent commission was based on the principles of democracy.
Equality and freedom
First of all, Quebec wanted to establish an egalitarian system accessible to all its citizens. In its general definition, the democratization of education as envisaged by the Commission should result firstly in equal opportunities of access to all levels of education, regardless of the wealth of the parents, gender or any other factor of social exclusion.
In other words, it was about putting an end to elitist institutional practices and ensuring that access to school was no longer a privilege reserved for children from rich families, men and the urban population. It was a question of concretizing the “recognition of the right to education” by granting each young person and each adult the means to educate themselves up to the highest level desired according to their aspirations, and regardless of their origins and background. personal characteristics.
Furthermore, the reform implemented aimed to harmonize the quality of training, because it had until then been fragmented. Even among those who accessed school, a tiny minority benefited from quality education and could really benefit from school education.
Second, the democratic vision aimed to reconcile equality with freedom. To do this, measures have been put in place to offer diversified training in order to take into account the abilities and interests of each person and to give everyone the opportunity to follow the educational path that suits them.
From now on, students not only had the right to choose the academic and professional orientation courses of their liking. They were free to change direction, to go back and forth between levels of education (secondary, college and university) to acquire the desired training wherever and whenever they wanted.
Secondary education received particular attention from the Commission, which saw it as the key to reform. It was first hoped that it would be free and compulsory for all, in order to ensure that each young adult acquires a minimum basic training to integrate into society.
This is why it was decided to set up a comprehensive secondary school, so that all young people go through the same school and follow the same training in order to put an end to the fragmentation and dispersion of sectors, programs and types of secondary establishments that have been disrupting the Quebec education system for too long.
The end of hierarchy
The comprehensive school also sought to put an end to the hierarchy of secondary programs by which the elite monopolized the right to classical courses while the rest of the population was content with programs whose opportunities and social value were considered inferior. In other words, the Commission underlined the need to improve the quality of training so that the content and teaching conditions are comparable between equivalent establishments.
Postsecondary education has also been subject to major changes, but the most important, the most original and the most unprecedented was its division into two successive levels: the general and professional college (CEGEP) and the university.
In 1967, the first CEGEPs were created, and they were gradually spread everywhere, so that each region had at least one establishment. In order to make them more accessible, the Parent commission recommended diversifying secondary education into sectors whose diplomas would be equivalent.
The creation of CEGEPs will make it possible to broaden access to post-secondary education, particularly for French-speaking students, who were lagging behind English-speaking students. The accessibility and democratization of the university were achieved through two main measures: the extension of existing establishments and the creation of the University of Quebec network in 1968, which today has around ten constituents in different regions.
A positive outcome
Nearly sixty years after the final report of the Parent commission, what assessment can we make of this Quebec policy of democratization of education? This is certainly positive, but it has two faces.
From the outset, equality in education is not limited to ensuring that people of different social backgrounds have the right to access school, it is also necessary that they benefit from the resources and services necessary to succeed, obtain a diploma and benefit equitably in the job market.
It is in this sense that in 1996-1997, the PQ government updated the Parent reform by instituting another reform entitled Turn towards successlater renamed Educational renewalfocused on success and obtaining the diploma. This is a new stage of democratization to make the education system fair and equitable.
The statistical data shows a largely positive outcome of this coupling of equal access to that of success and its impact on society.
Variable graduation rate
Quebec is today one of the most educated societies in the world and where the rates of graduates from different levels of education are the highest. By cohort, these rates oscillate around 84% for secondary school, 50% for CEGEP and 33% for the baccalaureate (first university cycle).
In other words, more than eight out of ten students who start primary school later obtain a secondary school diploma before the age of 20 and almost ten after the age of 20. Five obtain higher education, among whom three will hold a baccalaureate.
Behind this mass education, however, lie significant social inequalities. If secondary education is free and compulsory for all young people residing on Quebec territory, the graduation rate by cohort varies significantly depending on gender, the network of establishments attended (private or public), the ethnic and immigrant origin of the students. parents, their income and their education, but above all their belonging or not to a racialized group and the fact of belonging to an indigenous community.
The situation is more crucial at CEGEP and university, where we observe highly significant disparities between men and women, depending on parental income and education, ethnic origin or identification with a racialized group. or indigenous, but also according to the status of pupil/student with a disability or learning and social and academic adaptation difficulties (EHDAA).
An unfinished project
In short, while recognizing the undeniable progress in the democratization of the Quebec system, it is also important to emphasize that this is still an unfinished project and that the mechanisms at the origin of social and racial inequalities are renewed over time according to the evolution of society and that we must remain vigilant.
Among these mechanisms are the appearance and consolidation of multi-speed schools, fueled by competition between public and private networks, accentuating exclusion, racism, linguisticism and discrimination, but also, in the context of the growth and diversification of immigrant populations, homophobia and transphobia, the challenges posed by the educational inclusion of EHDAA, the increase in income gaps between wealthy and modest families, etc.
In conclusion, it is important to remember that the reconfiguration of educational inequalities in Quebec is not a simple effect of social stratification, but that the school system produces them by its functioning, by the choice of policies which structure it as well as by the choice of training received by staff and the practices they implement on a daily basis.
Any suggestions? Write to Dave Noël: [email protected].