Opinion: Can't examine the work of lecturers to MNAs? Let's attempt

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“In an interview with Le Devoir final week, Training Minister Bernard Drainville was requested why lecturers don’t should be among the many highest paid in Canada, when MNAs are about to vote themselves into turning into so.

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His response: “Are you actually evaluating the job of being a trainer to the job of being an MNA?” He known as the comparability “shaky” and even “a tad demagogic”. Removed from a misstep, these feedback appeared extra like spontaneous sincerity relating to how Drainville feels in regards to the educators beneath his ministry.

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The factor is, regardless of the scorn in his reply, he’s proper. A comparability between a trainer and an MNA is the truth is not apt. The rationale for that’s that lecturers inevitably present themselves to be higher. As a trainer myself, I can say this with confidence.

Let’s begin with the bottom {qualifications}. To be a breveted trainer, you could have one or a number of college levels, present a police test, and cross a writing examination to be licensed by the federal government as competent. To grow to be an MNA, one must be an 18 12 months outdated citizen who has lived in Quebec for six months, after which win a reputation contest as soon as each 4 years or so. Hardly the identical bar to clear.

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By way of working circumstances, the increase for MNAs is in distinct recognition of the lengthy hours they need to work. Nonetheless, lecturers repeatedly work these hours, a lot of them unpaid, doing issues akin to planning, marking, extracurricular actions and so forth.

Ah-ha, the minister would possibly say, however what about ministries and committees? And true, that further committee and ministerial work does add up. But it surely does for lecturers, too. Many are concerned on governing boards, college councils, particular schooling committees and so forth, typically outdoors of educating hours for no further pay. And heads of departments get no advantages; they’re merely assigned fewer lessons to unencumber time for his or her division work. This, balanced in opposition to MNAs who can obtain something from $15,000 to $100,000 for further duties.

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However absolutely the additional scrutiny, the additional entry, the additional questions from the media, means I’ve extra accountability, the minister would possibly exclaim. This ignores the truth that lecturers are persistently questioned and scrutinized by directors, ministry officers akin to himself, and most vital, dad and mom. They’re routinely answering emails, taking telephone calls, conducting conferences and interviews. Lecturers additionally don’t have staffers allotted to them to assist handle these communications, in contrast to MNAs.

Politicians even have the problem of spirited debates within the meeting chamber. To do one’s job efficiently whereas being verbally harangued is certainly robust. One thing lecturers know all about, since they will cope with typically as many as a number of hundred youths in a single day, lots of whom might be not solely insubordinate, however verbally abusive, and even violent. Assaults in opposition to lecturers have gotten frighteningly routine; I don’t recall this being the case for MNAs.

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Lastly, I’ve little doubt that Drainville was additionally pondering of the inherent ranges of duty that elected officers should face. To be honest, that’s vital, when their selections have an effect on most points of our lives. However lecturers train their very own important obligations as nicely — mainly amongst them the protection, safety and development of the youth beneath their cost. There isn’t any larger duty than that; simply because lecturers carry that weight within the micro as a substitute of the macro is not any much less legitimate.

So general, I’d say lecturers require higher {qualifications}, are simply as laborious working, and carry related obligations in worse working circumstances than the minister and his colleagues. And lecturers do their job for considerably much less cash, to not point out respect from our minister. So certainly, they don’t seem to be comparable; Drainville doesn’t stack up in opposition to any trainer I do know.

David Dollis is a highschool historical past trainer and naval reservist from Ormstown.