(Quebec) The Legault administration is contradicting itself by questioning the picture of the state of the schools.
Posted yesterday at 5:00am
In December he congratulated himself on having “a fairer, more reliable and more complete picture of the state of the infrastructure” of the school network thanks to his own initiative.
And what does this portrait say? According to the Quebec infrastructure plan presented by Quebec on Tuesday, 62% of elementary schools and 65% of secondary schools have a “condition index” of D or E, meaning they are in poor or very poor condition. There are more than before, even though we have increased investments for renovation.
The Legault government has missed its target of reducing that share to 50% this year. He set himself this goal at the beginning of his first term.
During a press conference on Wednesday, François Legault questioned this portrait and the process used to assess the state of schools. “I have doubts,” he said. He asked Infrastructure Minister Jonatan Julien to “assess exactly what that means, the famous ratings for schools” to review the way “school decay” is measured. “Is one class ailing or the whole school? »
PHOTO CHARLES WILLIAM PELLETIER, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Quebec Premier François Legault
He went even further with allegations against school service centers created by his government to replace school boards. He suspected her of inflating needs in order to get more money: “Currently the way [dont] it works, every service point evaluates their schools. So there’s obviously an incentive to say, “I need money for my schools.” […] I hear all sorts of things about how it’s done. »
We cannot revisit this outing by the prime minister without recalling what he said in an interview with La Presse earlier this month. He announced his intention to give himself more powers in managing the network, unhappy with the decisions made by school service centers. “There are things that are done [par les directeurs généraux] with the approval of the board, which do not necessarily suit us,” he affirmed.
Minister Drainville adds
For his part, Education Minister Bernard Drainville said he shared the Prime Minister’s “questions”. La Presse asked him on Friday for an example of embezzlement, because that’s what it’s about, on the part of a school service center. He didn’t want to answer. Instead, the minister reiterated that he had visited schools with a “condition index” of E and had seen no “visible signs that they were in very poor condition, which does not mean that no work was necessary.
“We will validate the inspection methodology and see the results,” he added.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Education Secretary Bernard Drainville
However, a report he signed and submitted to the National Assembly on December 9 reads: “During the past year, the stock of school infrastructure has been the subject of an extensive inspection action, particularly considering a new, more robust and standardized methodology across the school network. This exercise made it possible to draw a fairer, more reliable and more complete picture of the state of infrastructures. »
The status report of the Ministère de l’Education states: “With the new status of the school infrastructure [il] will be able to propose an optimal investment strategy to deal with the physical deterioration of the buildings.” The government announced on Tuesday that it would allocate $14 billion over 10 years to renovate or rebuild schools.
Find out why the next day the government looks like it’s contesting a problem it promises to fix…
The maintenance deficit of the school building stock – the estimated bill for the refurbishment work – has been steadily increasing for years. It is now 7.7 billion (5 years ago it was 3.3 billion). So far, year after year too little money has been spent on renovations to avoid further increasing this deficit.
School status assessment
Let’s break down the process of assessing the health of schools. Under the Coalition avenir Québec, the Ministère de l’Éducation has defined a school infrastructure management framework which, as we can read, “includes, in particular, a standardized methodology for inspecting infrastructure, prioritizing work and estimating the cost of that work. This framework is consistent with the “Government Infrastructure Management Model” established by the Treasury Board.
School service centers must follow the Methodological and Technical Guide for Infrastructure Inspections. The ministry has developed it and trained inspectors who can be “an internal or external resource of the school board”.
“The general management of each educational institution is responsible for the quality, integrity and completeness of data related to its infrastructure assets,” emphasizes the department’s governance framework. It reserves the right to carry out audits to verify the compliance of the data – which will also be checked when it comes time to give money to carry out the work.
Inspection data is entered into new software called Maximo, or Education and Higher Education Infrastructure Management (GIEES).
This new tool, redeveloped by the department, replaces another inspection system that had been criticized by the Auditor General early in the CAQ’s first term. He then complained that the school building stock was “in poor condition”.
Once the data has been entered into GIEES, the cost of the various works to refurbish a school is “automatically estimated using modeled unit costs” developed by the Ministry with a professional company.
It is also Bernard Drainville’s ministry that “assigns to each building in the school building stock an index of physical deterioration”, the famous “condition index”. Developed by the Treasury Board, this index applies to all of Quebec’s public infrastructure, from streets to hospitals.
A school receives a D and is considered “poor condition” under Quebec criteria if the estimated cost of the maintenance work is 15% of the building’s replacement value; it is E if it represents 30% or more.
The reality check
While the liberal Marwah Rizqy showed him photos of ailing schools on Friday, Bernard Drainville acted like a student who gets a bad report card: the grades don’t really reflect reality, he pleaded. He wondered “if we couldn’t have a method that might better reflect the condition of the building.”
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Liberal MP Marwah Rizqy
He added that 400 buildings would go from a D or E rating to a C, B or even A rating “if we took out the cost of paving the school yard or the jetty from the calculation [des autobus] or even the cost of computer wiring”. If so, the problem seems to lie in the tools of his service rather than in the school service centers.
A bit of history to conclude: This whole review of school evaluation started under the Couillard government. He accused the school authorities of beautifying the state of the schools and not giving him a real picture! In contrast, the Coalition avenir Québec accused the government of wanting to hide the truth. MP Jean-François Roberge – education minister in the first CAQ mandate – exclaimed: Liberals “still underestimate the decay of schools”. Back then there were fewer schools in bad or very bad condition than today. What did François Legault say about it? “Our schools are falling apart! »