(Quebec) It will only be in 2025 that we will truly know the impact that strikes have had on student success, said Education Minister Bernard Drainville on Wednesday.
He was responding to questions from Liberal MP Madwa-Nika Cadet concerning the effectiveness of the educational catch-up plan during the study of the budgetary appropriations of the Ministry of Education.
According to the most recent data, 483,751 interventions have been carried out with students since the end of January in all schools in Quebec. For example, 175,001 students were able to benefit from tutoring services.
However, we must not “declare victory too quickly”, recognized Minister Drainville in the parliamentary committee. The effectiveness of the aid measures will only be truly measured at the start of 2025, according to him.
To take stock of the situation, it will first be necessary to take note of the report card results, then see the number of registrations for summer courses and finally, consider the grades obtained in the January ministerial exams.
“It is still too early to measure the effects, the after-effects of the strikes, but we know that there were some,” declared Mr. Drainville. It is possible that we will only be able to measure the full impact of the strikes in early 2025.”
“When we arrive at this evaluation, what we want is to be able to see that the strikes have had the least penalizing impact possible and we will then be able to affirm that the catch-up plan has achieved its results,” he added.
Students affected by the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE) strike last fall missed about a month of school. The Common Front strike lasted eight days.
In public secondary schools, 32% of students have an intervention plan because they have special needs. The public dropout rate is 18.2%, compared to 8.2% in the private sector.
Furthermore, Mme Cadet was concerned about the teaching profession: she reported that during the strikes, between November 21, 2023 and January 11, 2024, at least 263 teachers, 56 professionals and 599 members of support staff resigned.
“Let’s be careful,” reacted Bernard Drainville, who emphasized that 263 resigning teachers correspond to only 0.0015% of the 165,000 teachers in the province.
The minister, however, acknowledged facing “immense” labor challenges. Given the scale of the challenge, he warns that an increased number of non-legally qualified teachers could find themselves in front of a classroom next year.
The number of non-legally qualified teachers has increased by 76% in three years. However, Mr. Drainville affirmed that he could not “exclude” that there would be even more next year.
The study of the Ministry of Education’s appropriations on Wednesday also revealed that 14% of the 593 complaints made to the National Student Ombudsman over the past eight months concern sexual violence.
In addition, a standoff organized last August between senior officials of the ministry and the directors general of school service centers with the theme of “cohesion” and “bringing together” cost taxpayers $8,000.
reference: www.lapresse.ca