In Quebec, the choice of secondary school marks the end of childhood. From the fifth year of primary school, you have to prepare for it. Well-meaning parents have only one desire: to give the best to their child. Convinced that the so-called private school (subsidised) and the selective public schools offer a better education and a better framework, they make every effort to ensure that their child will succeed in the famous admission tests.
I was one of those parents. For my son Laurent, I dreamed of the highest rated college. But the pressure is strong to perform and surpass others. Faced with such competition, you only think of yourself, your child, the results. We stimulate him, we encourage him, we push him in the back. Until things went wrong… In the weeks following the exams, my son sank into deep sadness.
What had I missed? Obsessed with the desire to see my boy succeed, had I ignored his signals of distress? Did I put too much pressure? Had my expectations created too much stress and anxiety in him? Forced to question myself, I had to transform my expectations of my boy, learn to take into account his aptitudes and his real interests and help him regain his self-confidence. Above all, I had to review my values.
In the weeks and months that followed, I talked a lot with other parents. I was then amazed at how much the suffering that my son and I had experienced were shared. Fighting, dismay, crying and above all the feeling of shame that comes with failing exams. Ashamed of the parents to have a child who is not up to par. Ashamed of children for disappointing their parents. The multiple daily dramas experienced by children and parents then convinced me of the relevance of making a film on the excesses of the race for selection that accompanies the transition from primary to secondary school.
Since the making of my film The children of the winners in 2009, the race for selection only got more intense. This is how a democratic school, open to everyone, which offers equal opportunities to all, is increasingly being replaced by a multiplication of à la carte programs, with an increasingly ruthless selection which creates a minority of elected officials and a strong contingent of excluded people. Quebec children thus have less and less access to the same quality of education.
The sharp increase in the number of students in the private sector increases the subsidies paid to them by the State and correspondingly reduces the resources of the public. But above all, the regrouping of the strongest in certain schools slowly and surely leads to a degradation of the training conditions for the weakest. By increasing the burden of ordinary classes, selective schools threaten everyone’s accessibility to quality education and run counter to the democratic principle of access and equality of opportunity for all. This is a real drift in our collective choices.
While the Ministry of Education advocates success for all, we are currently witnessing the opposite effect. More and more selections, more and more schools deteriorating and more and more students dropping out. After they have been excluded by those around them, is it any wonder that students exclude themselves? About four out of ten students leave school without a high school diploma. Since the year 2000, their number has continued to grow.
Each year, the school population becomes more divided and ghettoized. It is time for Quebec to put an end to an education system that places individual choices above collective well-being. This is why I wholeheartedly support the plan of the École ensemble movement for a common school network and an equitable education system, and I ask all political parties to commit to implementing it.