Several Quebec universities have developed new programs to meet the needs of non-legally qualified teachers and support the educational environment in a context of shortage. Some programs are qualifying, others only aim to train.
While a shortage affects Quebec, some 30,000 non-legally qualified (NLQ) teachers lent a hand in classrooms during the 2020-2021 school year. According to the latest report from the Auditor General of Quebec, this represents nearly a quarter of teachers. To address this issue, several universities have recently opened training programs for NLQ teachers. These short or master’s-type programs are designed to be in line with the realities experienced by these teachers. However, they do not all lead to a teaching certificate and are sometimes intended to provide tools without qualifying.
Short training courses
In January 2023, the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, called on the university sector to accelerate the upgrading of non-legally qualified teachers through short programs. This is how graduate programs have emerged in several faculties of education sciences, such as at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). The university has just announced a new 30-credit specialized graduate studies diploma (DESS) in preschool education and primary education for NLQ teachers, scheduled for fall 2024. Initially, only 24 students will be admitted for the preschool pathway and 24 for primary school. Students being people who already teach and “implement professional gestures, we cannot [pouvait] not give them lessons in the same way as in the regular baccalaureate,” explains Élaine Turgeon, professor in the Department of Didactics and director of the program. This DESS, entirely adapted to the reality of a teacher in the classroom, “could lead to a teaching authorization,” according to the official description.
Same story with TELUQ University, which also acquired a new DESS of 30 credits in preschool education and primary education, in the fall of 2023. Lucie Laflamme, general director, specifies that “the program will lead, after a year of probation, to the teaching certificate.”
The university has just launched two additional DESS reserved for NLQ teaching staff in winter 2024 in teaching French and English (second languages). Renowned for its distance education, TELUQ offers these programs remotely, part-time and asynchronously. This allows for a good work-family-study balance as well as deployment throughout the province. This is why the three programs currently have nearly 400 active registrations. The DESS from UQAM and TELUQ University are reserved for people already employed and pre-selected by their school service center.
The University of Quebec in Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT) is also one of the establishments that have developed training for NLQ teachers and launched a qualifying DESS in secondary education in the fall of 2023.
For its part, the University of Sherbrooke announced the creation of two undergraduate programs in order to equip NLQ people for employment, with a view to “limiting the impacts linked to a lack of training”, we can read on his site. However, these programs are professional and do not lead to a patent.
Qualifying master’s degrees
Other routes to the profession are possible, notably through a 60-credit master’s degree. To this end, the University of Montreal (UdeM) offers two qualifying courses, leading to a teaching certificate: the master’s degree in education, with the secondary education option, and the master’s degree with the option of preschool education and primary education. These non-limited programs can be followed full-time or part-time, allowing work-study balance. It was in 2021 that the University of Montreal developed the qualifying master’s degree in preschool education and primary education, responding to the call from the Minister of Education at the time, Jean-François Roberge. Nearly 200 students registered and 58% of them will graduate this year, knowing that some will complete their course in four or five years. These master’s degrees are offered both to people who already teach and to those who wish to move into teaching and hold a bachelor’s degree. The qualifying mastery at UdeM is set to evolve. As Ahlem Ammar, dean of the Faculty of Educational Sciences, points out, the university made a request in order to “make it correspond even more to the reality of non-legally qualified teachers”. To this end, it wishes to propose the recognition of experiential acquired knowledge “if this solution is accepted”. Some NLQ people have indeed been teaching for several years.
Laval University currently offers five master’s degrees in secondary education leading to the teaching certificate. A new master’s degree in preschool education and primary school teaching is also coming in 2024, we learn on the website of the Faculty of Educational Sciences, which says it is “committed to countering the shortage of teaching staff in Quebec” .