In August 2023, Education Minister Bernard Drainville blamed the unions for a highly undesirable situation; less than two weeks before the start of the school year, more than a thousand teachers were still missing. He then described the situation as a “psychodrama.” A word that has the advantage (or disadvantage) of having an ambiguous definition since it could be interpreted, depending on taste, as “a drama that affects our souls” or even as “a drama that exists only in our minds.”
It is difficult to know what the minister really meant. However, he reiterated these remarks during the negotiations in November that followed for the renewal of the national collective agreement, stating that waiting until August to distribute tasks to teachers caused a “psychodrama every year!”
The minister seems to think that the problem is imaginary and that it is enough to be better organized. For example, by distributing tasks in June and getting more flexibility from teachers. After all, this is a crisis and, in a crisis, everyone has to make an extra effort.
Back to school
On the eve of the 2024 school year, after difficult negotiations during which the government actually obtained more flexibility from teaching staff, the situation does not look any happier.
Teachers wanted an honest review of their task, which has become considerably more complex over the past 20 years. This review did not take place. “I couldn’t give them teachers, because I don’t have any,” Drainville said last February.
Between 4,000 and 5,000 people graduate from Quebec universities each year with a degree in education. While it is true that this number is already insufficient to cover retirements, one of the biggest problems is that nearly 25% of new recruits leave the profession within the first seven years of their career.
Since 2010, that’s nearly 2,000 qualified teachers who have left public education. These people have not ceased to exist. They are somewhere in the job market, but they are not in schools.
2,000 people who shared, with taxpayers, a bill of several tens of thousands of dollars to follow a four-year training course that led them to a job they practiced for less than seven years. Could it be that a review of the teaching task could help limit the flight of qualified personnel and attract others to return?
Added to this is the Legault government’s stubborn decision to continue with the implementation of 4-year-old kindergartens for all of Quebec despite the many criticisms of such a model which is, in all respects, inconsistent with the labour pool available to Quebec. It takes much longer to train a teacher than a CPE educator, and teacher training does not provide the expertise that CPE educators have with the under-five clientele.
After six years of post-secondary training, teachers often have to be trained, in a hurry, by CPE educators, before teaching in 4-year-old kindergarten.
Needless to say, it has not been demonstrated that 4-year-old kindergarten provides a significant educational advantage over CPE, and it is a safe bet that this demonstration will not be made.
Bet
It is understandable that the bet is attractive to many young families, who see it as one less year of childcare to manage and pay for. However, each 4-year-old kindergarten class mobilizes an additional qualified teacher for a maximum of 17 students. In March 2024, there were 1,660 4-year-old kindergarten classes.
The use of load shedding in social services always sends shivers down the spine. However, the option is always considered whenever there is a shortage of health professionals in a hospital. Announcements of service disruptions are now commonplace in several regions.
The question rarely arises, however, when there is a shortage of teachers. It seems as if the consequences of placing an unqualified person in the position of a teacher are less serious. As if the difficult clientele of today’s schools were not going to become the high-cost clientele of tomorrow’s social services. As if there were not a very strong link between quality compulsory schooling and a reduction in the need for social services.
In the meantime, from the first year of primary school to the fifth year of secondary school, as soon as there is a shortage of a qualified teacher somewhere, an entire class, a professional learning service point, is transformed into a daycare. A real “psychodrama”.