Posted at 12:00 a.m.
Stop embellishing reality
How many teachers will he miss at the start of the school year? No class will be left without a teacher, hammered in August the Minister of Education, Jean-François Roberge. However, there are still around 100 full-time positions to be filled in Quebec schools. What was the performance of the students in the last Ministry exams? Four months after the tests, we still do not know. The future minister will be able to demonstrate greater transparency, ask school service centers to report more quickly and stir the cage of the mega-department of Education.
As for parents and students, who sometimes come up against the opacity of school service centers when they want to denounce a situation deemed unfair, they will be able to count on the establishment of a uniform system for handling complaints, in 2023. The mandate of the new National Student Ombudsman will be closely monitored.
Attracting and retaining teachers in these times of shortage
Today, those who already have a university degree (in a field other than teaching) and who decide to become teachers must type two years of master’s degree. Why not go back to the teaching certificate that was in use until 1995? This could be all the more sufficient since mentoring by experienced teachers is already in place in several places and could be extended. We must avoid at all costs that new poorly supervised teachers leave running, just as we must avoid premature departures on retirement of teachers to whom certain school service centers categorically refuse any reduction in workload. Could daycare educators lend a hand to the teacher who, in a given year, finds herself with a particularly difficult cohort? A school in Bécancour is testing the thing. Such ideas should be explored to see if they should be replicated elsewhere.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The expertise of specialists is urgently needed with children, to help them concretely.
Serve the student, not the bureaucracy
Psychologists, psychoeducators, speech therapists and remedial teachers in schools have been complaining for years of wasting a lot of time “grading” students and of being drowned in forms to fill out. Jean-François Roberge, who was Minister of Education, agrees that we should put an end to all this bureaucracy, the signal has already been given in this direction, parents and teachers are calling for it with all their wishes. The expertise of specialists is urgently needed with children, to help them concretely.
Accelerating school renovation
Six out of ten schools are in poor condition and too many children learn in dilapidated places, sometimes without natural light, where many adults would refuse to spend their days. COVID-19 brought to light the ventilation problems of schools, but long before, establishments had to close urgently due to dilapidation or mold. During the election campaign, the Coalition avenir Québec promised to add $2 billion to the $7 billion investments already provided for in the last budget for the next four years. This commitment must be respected.
PHOTO DAVID BOILY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
School under construction, in LaSalle, last April
End the three-speed school
Only 15% of students from regular high school programs go to university, established a study conducted in 2019 by researcher Pierre Canisius Kamanzy, of the University of Montreal. If they attend a selective program at a public school, the rate rises to 51%. As for young people from private secondary schools, they go there in a proportion of 60%.
The financing of private schools is widely questioned, among others by the École Ensemble movement. Skimming starts early: in primary school, public schools give exams to students who want to take part in an international or music program, for example. The regular programs of public schools are thereby devalued and the advantages of a neighborhood school where everyone rubs shoulders disappear.
Tackling difficulties in French early
At the end of secondary school, 90% of students pass the Ministry exam in French. Why do CEGEPs have to multiply French help centers and universities, extra courses? How to explain that future teachers themselves fail so massively in their compulsory certification test in French?
The Minister of Higher Education, Danielle McCann, recognized this in 2021: the results of the uniform French test that students must pass at the end of their college career “are not up to the mark” of what would be desired.
From time to time, teachers also denounce the fact that the evaluation criteria for Ministry examinations in French are constantly decreasing.
Mastery of French – reading, spelling and enriching vocabulary – must be given greater priority.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, PRESS ARCHIVES
Training of auxiliary nurses
Direct students to the right program
In CEGEP, the graduation rate has not exceeded 65% in recent years. Meanwhile, DEPs – vocational diplomas leading to a trade as a plumber, welder or nursing assistant, for example – are not widely used. Shouldn’t we encourage a little more enrollment in these programs and promote them more?
As much as a dumbing down is decried in French, the bar is often very high in mathematics, where Quebec is a champion both in Canada and in industrialized countries. Are strong mathematics really required in all these CEGEP programs that require it?
Improving child care services
Some students spend close to four hours a day in overcrowded daycares that often offer nothing more than babysitting. On the contrary, early childhood centers offer a real educational program which, logically, should find its extension in school daycare services. However, the positions of educator – precarious, with reduced hours and too few to have a decent salary – are very unattractive. As a result, groups are overflowing and shortages are so intense that some schools have asked parents to unregister their children from daycare services. Child care workers and unions are eager to get more involved in school projects, and they could be much better involved.