Quebec has agreed with the Common Front unions to include in its proposed agreement the addition of thousands of teaching assistants to support the province’s teachers, we learned The duty. A situation which should make it possible to offer more working hours to many academic support employees, who are demanding to be mobilized in the context of academic catch-up which is getting underway.
Since last year, a pilot project has been underway to deploy teaching assistants in part of the school network. Initially limited to around a hundred schools, the project saw the number of participating establishments double this year. This measure allows employees with diverse backgrounds — notably childcare educators — to come and support teachers by carrying out various tasks that do not directly relate to teaching or individual assistance to students with special needs.
A report from the Center for Research and Intervention on Academic Success posted online on December 20 concluded that a majority of people surveyed in the education sector viewed this initiative favorably. Its authors noted that teaching assistants make it possible to reduce the workload of teachers while providing better supervision to students.
“It’s in the agreement”
In order to lighten the workload of primary school teachers, the Quebec government has proposed adding the equivalent, in working hours, of 4,000 full-time classroom assistants, including in five-year-old kindergarten classes.
The proposal has been repeated many times in recent months, and has been the subject of discussions at the Common Front negotiating table. Unions representing support employees — who are at the heart of this proposal — ultimately approved it as part of the proposed agreement agreed with the government, we learned The duty. “It wasn’t easy, but yes, it’s in the agreement,” confirms the president of the school sector of the Federation of Public Service Employees (FEESP-CSN), Annie Charland.
At the negotiating table, the union led by Mme Charland said he feared that the number of working hours of special education technicians would decrease due to the use of classroom aides. However, “in negotiations, we further defined who can do this job” in order to prevent teaching assistants from harming other types of better-paid academic support jobs, she explains. “For us, it’s a complementary service. We must not crowd out a number of jobs to provide help in the classroom. »
The CEO of the Federation of School Service Centers of Quebec, Caroline Dupré, specifies for her part that this initiative should allow school service centers to offer full-time positions to many people who occupy the position of part-time teaching assistant. “This will allow us to offer them more interesting tasks which will facilitate staff retention while giving teachers a big boost to support student success,” rejoices M.me Dupre.
It now remains to be seen whether this agreement will receive the approval of the union members, who will be asked to vote on it during general meetings which will begin next Monday and last until February 19.
School catch-up
However, at a time when the unions representing school support employees are campaigning for their members to have more working hours in order to make ends meet, they were not consulted before the unveiling of the plan educational catch-up program of $300 million announced by the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville. “We have a lot of difficulty getting support staff recognized. However, if there were no support staff, there would not be a school that would operate because the support staff are in all the buildings,” laments M.me Charland.
“Ultimately, our priority is to help these students who have missed days of school,” insists the president of the Federation of School Support Personnel (FPSS-CSQ), Éric Pronovost, who is saddened also for not having been consulted during the development of this plan.
Especially since currently, the few working hours granted to school support staff mean that many of them leave the field to find better paid full-time employment in the private sector, making it even more difficult. suddenly the workload of workers who cling to the public school network, notes Mme Charland. ” It’s a vicious circle. »
The president of the FCSSQ, however, assures that school support employees will play a key role in academic upgrading, in particular to occupy teaching assistant positions, as well as to offer specialized education services.
The office of Minister Bernard Drainville has not made any comments on this matter.