Editorial: Invoice 23 reveals contempt for Quebec's training system

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Training Minister Bernard Drainville was taken to job this week for belittling Quebec lecturers.

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Throughout an interview with Le Devoir, he was requested: If Members of the Nationwide Meeting should be the very best paid in Canada (as soon as they undertake a brand new invoice proposing a 30-per-cent wage enhance), why not lecturers, who’re in contract talks with the federal government?

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Drainville scoffed: “Are you actually evaluating the job of an MNA to the job of a instructor?”

The subsequent day, he tried to nuance his remarks, saying it wasn’t his intention to denigrate the work of educators. However too late, Drainville was pilloried throughout query interval and on social media.

Liberal MNA Marwa Rizqy, who has taught faculty herself, had the most effective comeback: “I can affirm {that a} instructor could make a wonderful MNA, however the reverse is much less true!”

Certainly, lecturers have a tricky gig as of late, even with out being under-appreciated by the training minister. They’re briefly provide, lack satisfactory helps, and face excessive ranges of burnout. They’re struggling to assist extra college students with particular wants and behavioural points, whereas attempting to help those that fell behind throughout the pandemic.

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Unlucky as they have been, nevertheless, Drainville’s remarks are nothing in comparison with the contempt for the training system proven in newly launched laws. Invoice 23 proposes a significant centralization of authority within the arms of the minister, who would assume the ability to nominate the directors-general of French service centres and English faculty boards, in addition to overrule their selections.

That is notably irritating for English faculty boards, who’re nonetheless preventing the Coalition Avenir Québec’s final overhaul of college governance. Invoice 40 abolished faculty boards and their councils of commissioners, creating service centres as an alternative. The English group went to courtroom arguing that is an infringement of the constitutional proper to handle and management minority language training.

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English faculty boards have been granted an injunction by Quebec Superior Court docket that has allowed them to stay intact. However earlier than the choose has even dominated on Invoice 40, the CAQ authorities is embarking on a brand new and much more draconian transformation that additional undermines the rights of the English-speaking group.

However Invoice 23 will not be dangerous just for the English system. It’s simply as horrible — if not worse — for French colleges, which have already misplaced a lot of their autonomy below Invoice 40. Concentrating extra energy within the arms of the minister (particularly one who has so little regard for lecturers) dangers politicizing training, sidelining specialists and imposing one-size-fits-all options, with out doing something to assist college students.

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Moreover, Invoice 23 proposes to interchange the function of the Conseil supérieur de l’éducation by creating an Institut nationwide d’excellence en éducation. The Conseil has lengthy been a precious supply of non-partisan pedagogical analysis, experience and recommendation, guiding training coverage in Quebec. Nevertheless it has not too long ago clashed with the CAQ authorities over points like fairness and specialised programming. Now its mandate is being supplanted by a brand new physique of questionable independence.

In the meantime, an advisory committee that evaluates instructor coaching applications give up en masse to protest Invoice 23. (It will likely be eradicated anyhow, however members determined to exit with a bang, denouncing the reform as an “assault.”)

Premier François Legault usually says training is “the” precedence for Quebec. He and his minister ought to begin appearing prefer it.