The number of absentee students from Quebec schools has reached a new high. More than 158,000 stayed at home on Monday, bringing the absentee rate to nearly 13%, double the usual rate. In some schools, that figure rises to 25%.
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These figures, which come from the Ministry of Education, refer to students in primary and secondary schools, but also in adult education and vocational training centers.
This is a record number of absenteeism, according to the Quebec Federation of Educational Establishment Directors (FQDE).
“There are experienced teachers who have told me that they have never seen this before,” says Nicolas Prévost, who visited schools last week. Usually the absentee rate is more between 5% and 7%, he specifies.
At the height of the tidal wave of the Omicron variant earlier this year, the number of absentees had risen to almost 130,000 students, according to the Ministry of Education.
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In some schools, the proportion of absent students is also well above the national average.
In Mauricie, in the Chemin-du-Roy school service centre, 15 to 25 per cent of pupils had to stay at home on Tuesday, according to a survey carried out among school administrators.
On Montreal’s south shore, at Charles LeMoyne Elementary School, about 200 of the 850 schoolchildren were missing Monday, including several with flu-like symptoms, according to the Marie Victorin School Service Center.
In Gatineau, the absentee rate at Pierre Eliott Trudeau Elementary School rose to nearly 20% earlier in the week, according to the western Quebec school board.
According to the ministry, just 20,000 students were absent due to symptoms related to COVID-19.
At FQDE, while we report “very few COVID-19 cases,” we report many flu and cold cases.
In the past few days, several schools have reminded parents of flu symptoms about the instructions.
Students with a fever should stay home for at least 24 hours, while students with a cough, runny nose or sore throat should wear the mask in class.
The high rate of absenteeism complicates the situation for many teachers, who are less comfortable bringing up new concepts in the classroom in front of several empty chairs, points out Mr. Prévost. Many parents also require work to be done at home.
Fortunately, for the moment, employees seem relatively spared from this fall’s proliferation of respiratory viruses, says FQDE’s President. “It’s really the students who are affected,” he says.
– with the collaboration of Francis Pilon