The number of students enrolled this fall in Quebec CEGEPs is (still) falling. This is not normal and it should be of concern to all of us.
Posted at 8:16 a.m.
According to data collected by the Fédération des cégeps from its 48 members, 173,392 young people are registered in a cégep this fall, in the regular education sector.
This is a decrease of 1.1% compared to the figures obtained at the same date last year.
However, according to demographic forecasts from the Ministry of Higher Education, CEGEPs should have recorded a 1.3% increase in their clientele this fall.
However, it drops.
And this – it is important to note – despite a significant increase in the number of international students (+ 9.6%), which find themselves partially masking the decrease in the number of enrolments.
This is the second year in a row that there has been a negative gap between enrollment and population forecasts. And that worries the Fédération des cégeps, indicated its president, Bernard Tremblay, during an editorial meeting in The Press.
No one can comment with absolute certainty on the causes of this decline. But two hypotheses are necessary.
Everything indicates that we are witnessing, first, the impact of the pandemic shock on young people.
Several experts had predicted that the pandemic would push many young people out of the education network prematurely. Unfortunately, the future is proving them right.
A few days ago, figures obtained by The Journal of Quebec with 44 school service centers in the province (out of 72) confirmed the harmful effect of COVID-19 and health measures on the school network. According to this data, the number of high school dropouts has jumped 30% in the past two years.
These are not the official figures from the Ministry of Education (which remains outrageously slow to provide essential data) and they only offer a partial portrait of the situation, but it would be wrong to take them lightly.
The second hypothesis is that the dynamism of the job market continues to exert a powerful power of attraction on our young people.
This was the case before the pandemic. And the shortage of staff in positions that do not require extensive training is far from over. For our young people, it is tempting. Even more so if they have been demotivated, at school, by the upheavals linked to the pandemic.
This trend should worry us all, because it seems increasingly clear, year after year, that obtaining a post-secondary diploma is now a prerequisite for the vast majority of new jobs that are created in Quebec (approximately 80%).
On this subject, note that the fact that CEGEPs have a little more difficulty recruiting young people cannot be analyzed in isolation. We must also remember that CEGEPs still have too much trouble persuading young people there to persevere until they obtain a diploma.
For the past twenty years, only 64% of CEGEP students have obtained their diploma no later than two years after the expected duration of their school career (we are talking here about five years for a technical course and four years for a diploma of college studies). [DEC] pre-university). It’s not enough.
There was already a problem at the exit, therefore. And now there seems to be one at the entrance.
For success, it should improve over the next few years. Since the CAQ came to power, there has been work on this subject, followed by an action plan and major investments.
The solutions are known. We now know, for example, that it is necessary to support in particular CEGEP students who had lower academic results in secondary school. Those whose general average was less than 70% only have a 20% chance of obtaining their DEC!
The next government will have to ensure that this operation bears fruit.
But above all, it will have to deploy more efforts, very quickly, to measure the extent of the current dropout and prevent the future of a generation of students from being obscured by the ravages of the pandemic.