Bernard Drainville will unveil the priorities of his tenure as head of the Department of Education on Thursday. Visiting a school on Wednesday, he said he was “surprised” to learn struggling students went straight from 5th grade to 1st secondary school for repeating a year and vowed to do it To take care of.
Updated yesterday at 11:07pm.
Every year, more than a thousand young people with learning disabilities make the one-year jump because the law requires primary school to be completed in six years, La Presse said on Tuesday. However, this path varies depending on where the students live in Quebec.
“I was very surprised by this story. We’re doing research to see first if it’s a common occurrence and then how we’re going to deal with it,” Mr Drainville said. The Ministry of Education does not know how many students in difficulty are sent to secondary school before completing primary school.
The Minister of Education attended the archipelago primary school at Léry in Montérégie. He was accompanied by Prime Minister François Legault, who thus discovered a so-called “school of the new generation”.
“When we started the first trimester [caquiste]I asked Jean-François Roberge [alors ministre de l’Éducation] designing a new school model, beautiful schools where there is more light, where we use wood and aluminium, where we have more common areas,” recalls Mr. Legault.
The facility’s director, Joanne Roy, guided the two elected CAQists through the owner.
Are there vacancies for speech and special education teachers? asked François Legault, adding that “it’s hard to find”.
” No. Not here,” said the director.
“People must like working in a new school,” the Prime Minister continued.
“Walls don’t teach,” Ms. Roy replied. It’s the people and the way it works. Places are at the service of whatever teachers can or want to do. »
In a press scramble, the Prime Minister later added that “of course, the most important thing is the staff”. “It’s the teachers, but it helps to work in a good context,” added Mr. Legault.
The defect “compromises services”
The director general of the school service center Grandes-Seigneuries also notes that recruiting staff is difficult.
“Almost all of our positions are filled. The challenge is substitutions and vacations throughout the year,” says Kathlyn Morel. More than one in ten teachers is “newbie,” she says, meaning they have less than five years of experience or are not legally qualified.
The Executive Director believes that staff shortages are the first issue Minister Drainville should address.
It is imperative that we address this deficiency together as it impacts the services. We are very worried about how the student unions will continue.
Kathlyn Morel, Director General of the Grandes Seigneuries School Service Center
In addition, this school service center welcomes an average of 650 more students each year.
“One in two schools lacks space. From adding space to building schools to renovating schools and expanding classrooms, we need them,” said Kathlyn Morel.
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135 Number of new generation schools Quebec plans to have built by 2029
Source: Government of Quebec