Almost 10% absent from class

A proportion comparable to that observed during the pandemic

At the beginning of April, nearly 10% of young people in the province were not in school, a percentage almost as high as in the middle of the pandemic. Disengagement from school, travel, anxiety: hypotheses vary on the causes of these absences.

Before the pandemic, a “normal” proportion of student absences was around 5 to 7%, at most.

However, the most recent figures provided to The Press by the Ministry of Education – which collects them, but no longer publishes them – show that in the first week of April, 9.5% of students in public primary and secondary schools were absent. This is almost as much as at the peak of the COVID-19 waves.

One in ten students, or around two or three students per class who are absent every day, is a lot, says Nicolas Prévost, president of the Fédération québécoise des directions d’establishment d’enseignement (FQDE).

Since the pandemic, he says, the relationship with school has changed.

There are many students who “simply refuse to come to school”, says the vice-principal of a secondary school, who cannot be identified because he fears reprisals from his school service center . “Parents have often given up, lacking the means to force their youngster to come to school,” writes the man who works in a school of around 1,500 students.

“It therefore happens that 14-year-olds stay at home gamer 24 hours a day with complete impunity,” he adds. Last week, for the last period of the day, the absence rate among his students was around 10%, according to the data he provided us.

Since the pandemic, attendance has been a real problem, says a teacher at a Montreal elementary school. She has seen students who only come to school four days a week, or even three. “We’re talking about 10-year-old children whose parents leave them at home! “, she said, deploring that there was “no follow-up of directions”.

There is also travel, adds this teacher, who works in a multicultural environment. Many of his students return to see family outside the country at the heart of the school year, thanks to cheaper plane tickets. ” It’s hell. I have a student who arrived in October,” she illustrates. There is also this other young person “with 30% grades” who left for a week on a trip to the South with her parents.

“Competing” with other activities

Many factors can explain why so many students are absent every day. But it is a negative attitude towards school that most explains absenteeism, believes Frédéric Guay, professor at Laval University and holder of the Canada Research Chair in motivation, perseverance and academic success.

“School competes with all kinds of things that are fun to do: whether it’s video games, doing activities with friends, playing sports,” adds Mr. Guay, who observes that young people are also left to their own devices, unsupervised at home.

At Tel-Jeunes, we have noted over the past year an increase in calls from parents whose teenagers are experiencing anxiety about going to school.

They testified that their children “refuse to go to school, have anxiety or panic attacks every morning,” illustrates Alexandra Fournier, spokesperson and expert advisor at Tel-Jeunes.

“With the strike we experienced this year, there are also young people who contacted us in connection with this return to school saying: it’s stressful, will I be able to perform in my year, everything will be rushed, or just young people who didn’t have the taste (to go back),” explains M^me Fournier.

“Is this a delayed post-pandemic effect? ”, she asks.

This is also what Frédéric Guay says. “The pandemic context seems to have had an amplifying effect on mental health problems. We end up with students who are more vulnerable. Are there some who have more problems with depression, anxiety, and who don’t want to go to school? That could be it,” said Mr. Guay.

A trend observed elsewhere

The increase in school absenteeism is not unique to Quebec. A recent CBC report revealed that in many regions of the country, chronic absenteeism (missing at least 10% of the school year – about 18 days) is on the rise.

The picture is similar in the United States, revealed the New York Times at the beginning of the month. Nationwide, it is estimated that a quarter of public school students have been chronically absent, meaning they have missed about 18 days of school. Before the pandemic, this proportion was 15%.

At Serge-Bouchard secondary school in Baie-Comeau, an attendance policy was created in 2016 and is still in place. Today, principal Steve Ahern says truancy at his school is under control.

“We’re a small town here. Often, we have teachers who arrive saying: “we saw so-and-so in such-and-such a place.” I’m a little weird, I’ll go,” the director said, laughing.

His school is in a disadvantaged environment, he explains, and “safety nets” are needed to increase success, in particular by acting on absenteeism.

Professor Frédéric Guay believes that the role of teachers is essential. “When it’s interesting, what we do in class, it won’t appeal to 100% of the students, but it will appeal to a good number of them. Let’s try to offer the most motivating teaching possible,” says Mr. Guay.

But, he adds, teachers face “more difficult cases” and increasingly heterogeneous classes.