Quebec short more than 4,000 teachers as school year set to begin

CBC

3 days ago

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Quebec Education Minister Bernard Drainville says there are still 4,115 teaching positions to be filled in the province's schools, with just a little over two weeks before the new school year begins.
"So 96 per cent of classrooms have a teacher," Drainville said, adding the French school service centres and the English-language school boards were working on recruiting the remaining four per cent.
At the same time last year, around 6,000 teachers were still missing. That's compared to 8,500 the year before that.
"It's good news, first for the students, then the parents and obviously for the school teams and teachers," Drainville told reporters on Thursday.
The minister credits an agreement that was reached with the unions two years ago, requiring teachers be assigned to a classroom at an earlier date, for the year-over-year improvements.
"Things are getting better," Drainville said, adding one of the government's objectives was to work on making the system more efficient.
He pointed to other improvements in recent years including higher salaries for teachers, having a second adult assigned to half the primary school classrooms to help out with students with challenges, and the creation of fast-track teacher certification programs.
While underlining certain successes, Drainville acknowledged the education system in Quebec still faces several challenges, although he didn't elaborate further.
When asked about the number of unqualified teachers being hired for the upcoming year, Drainville said around 10 per cent did not have a teaching diploma, but at least half of those did have a bachelor's degree in one of the subjects taught in school, such as French, English, history, chemistry or math.
1 in 10 teachers 'not a teacher'
Heidi Yetman, president of the Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers, said that is a concern.
"One in 10 teachers in Quebec is not a teacher," she said, "And we shouldn't be calling them teachers. They are unqualified personnel."
While Yetman applauds them for stepping up and walking into the classroom, saying they are desperately needed, having unqualified staff adds extra pressure on qualified teachers who need to support them.
She also noted that student learning is impacted, because unqualified personnel don't know pedagogy.
"They don't know how to teach reading and writing, for example," Yetman said.
She also said that while the number of open teaching positions needing to be filled may have dropped this year, more context is needed, such as how many total positions there are this year compared to last.
What is known, Yetman said, is that the number of vacant positions this year is "still concerning."
She referred to the situation not as a teacher shortage, but rather a "retention and recruitment crisis."
"There are teachers out there who have decided not to teach," she said, adding that 20 to 30 per cent of teachers entering the profession leave within the first five years.
"So we shouldn't really be talking about a shortage of teachers. We should be talking about a shortage of good working conditions, a shortage of resources for students, a shortage of respect for the profession."
Yetman says an example of that disrespect is the Quebec government announcing $570 million in cuts to the province's education system, blaming school boards and school service centres for going over budget.
"Blaming education for the deficit in Quebec is a really big error," she said. The government has since added $540 million to the budget, but with conditions.
In terms of support staff, such as special education technicians and professionals, including speech therapists, school psychologists and others, the number of positions to be filled remains unknown at this time.