Teacher, you won’t like me. At the very least, you won’t like the comparisons between Quebec and the other provinces when it comes to education.
Published at 1:18 am. Updated at 5:00 am.
There are a lot of nuances to be made, but in short, here is the observation. Education spending per student is higher in Quebec than elsewhere, despite lower teacher salaries.
The reason ? Primary and secondary school teachers spend much less time teaching in the classroom than in other provinces, requiring many more staff to provide the same services.
These comparisons require nuance, I repeat, but the portrait created from Statistics Canada data is fascinating, to say the least, in context.
First, Quebec ranks second overall when it comes to primary and secondary education spending in Canada. Spending per student is $17,411, which is 12% more than the Canadian average. Ontario is at $15,034 and Alberta is at $14,467. Public and private are included1.
According to my research, one of the reasons for the gap is the proportion of spending on school renovation and construction is higher in Quebec than elsewhere, likely due to pent-up demand.
But even if you eliminate this capital wealth gap, spending per student remains higher than average, rising to about $16,000, compared to the Canadian average of $15,600.
Another nuance: The Quebec data includes vocational training and general adult education, according to Statistics Canada. In Quebec, primary care services would also be included, which is less common elsewhere.
But the fact is that Quebec’s great efforts are surprising considering that teachers’ salaries are lower for the same typical training. At its peak, after 13 years, a full-time teacher in Quebec earned $88,652 in the 2021-2022 school year, compared to an average of $96,464 in Canada, a difference of 8.1%.
The gap narrowed the following year – not yet released by Statistics Canada – when teachers in Quebec received pay increases that allowed them to reach $92,027 at the top, while Alberta and Ontario suffered losses.
This lower compensation should therefore result in lower spending per student in Quebec, but this is not the case. How is it possible ?
The answer seems to lie in the time teachers spend in class. In Quebec, as in the rest of Canada, primary school students must receive a fairly similar number of hours of instruction (900 hours in Quebec)2.
The problem is that teachers spend much less time in class than anywhere else. At the elementary level, teachers’ classroom time in Quebec is 738 hours per year, compared to, for example, 878 hours in British Columbia and 895 hours in Alberta.
In primary school the gap with Alberta is 21% and in lower secondary school it rises to 46% (612 hours in Quebec compared to 895 in Alberta).
The difference means more staff are needed in Quebec to provide the same number of hours of instruction to students, Statistics Canada data shows.
Another way to draw the same conclusion: the number of students per teacher is lower in Quebec. The ratio is 11.1 in Quebec, compared to 13.5 in Ontario and 16.7 in Alberta. The Canadian average is 13.3 students per teacher3.
If Quebec had the same student-teacher ratio as Ontario, around 17,000 fewer full-time teachers would be needed.
Again, detailed data analysis requires nuance. According to Statistics Canada, although teachers in Quebec spend less time in the classroom, they work the same number of hours in school as elsewhere and slightly more (1,280 hours per year, compared to 1,200 hours in Alberta).
Based on this observation, we must question the organization of work. According to the data, teachers spend a lot of time at school doing things other than teaching in their classrooms, more than anywhere else in Canada. At the lower secondary level, teachers spend just 48% of their time in the classroom, compared to 75% in Alberta.
Do they do more extracurricular activities than elsewhere? Course preparation? Individual follow-up examinations? Meet? Corrections? Monitoring hours (which they often hate)?
Is time outside of class underestimated elsewhere in Canada and is it more conventional in Quebec?
Another element to take into account: the severity of so-called regular classes for the public, especially in secondary schools. Could it be that skimming private schools and special schools (international, sports, etc.) requires more resources overall, ultimately for the entire network, public and private?
This unique aspect of Quebec, where there are many more private schools than anywhere else in Canada, is at the heart of the negotiations. Teachers are calling for more resources for classes with more severe cases or even the creation of a larger number of specialty classes. The government responds that there is a lack of staff.
In short, despite all the nuances, the comparisons do not suggest that Quebec’s education system is underfunded, on the contrary. Unless our children have it much more difficult than elsewhere… or the organization is poor…
1. Expenses per student also include fees paid privately by parents.
2. Quebec has a low average in primary education (900 hours per year compared to the Canadian average of 924). In secondary school, this teaching time in Quebec remains at 900 hours (at age 14), and the Canadian average drops to 907 hours. The gap between Quebec and Canada is explained in particular by the lower number of school days (180 in Quebec compared to 182 in Alberta and 187 in Ontario).
3. This calculation is based, among other things, on three Statistics Canada databases on educators (37-10-0153-01), the proportion of part-time employment among educators (37-10-0153-04) and the number of students (37-10- 0153-01), all in the public sector.