Pontiac teaching positions filled despite provincial shortage
TAYLOR CLARK
LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE
MRC PONTIAC: Although almost 6,000 positions remained vacant in Quebec by the end of the summer, the teaching shortage didn’t hamper the start of the new academic year at Pontiac schools.
Weeks before the school year kicked off, Bernard Drainville, Minister of Education, announced that 5,704 teaching positions had yet to be filled across the province; a 33% decrease compared to the same time last year. The 80% increase in enrollment for the past academic year was attributed to immigration, causing nearly 3,700 new teaching positions to be created.
George Singfield, director general of the Western Québec School Board, said recruitment wasn’t as challenging as the previous year, but the August 8 deadline “was hard to meet.”
The signing of the new collective agreement for teaching staff meant positions had to be filled no later than August 8 “to guarantee greater stability at the start of the school year and more time for teachers to prepare,” according to the Ministry.
“We still had people we needed to hire as of August 8, but we mostly had all our people hired at our schools,” said Singfield. “And we’ve reduced the number of non-legally qualified teachers we have in our schools this year.”
Quebec has turned to educators without teaching certificates to fill the gap in teachers missing from the classroom. While the Education Act requires someone to hold a teaching permit issued by the Minister of Education to teach in Quebec, the minister may allow school boards to hire candidates without teacher training when no qualified personnel are available.
According to the Auditor General of Québec, more than a quarter of the teachers who taught during the 2020 to 2021 school year were unqualified.
“The goal is to get ourselves to a place where all our teachers are qualified. And I don’t mean to take away from teachers who are in our schools who are non-legally qualified. We value them as well and support them, but the goal is to get everybody qualified,” said Singfield.
To counter the shortage, institutions like TÉLUQ University introduced shorter training courses for nonlegally qualified teachers already working in schools. The university committed to developing new 30-credit study programs in seven teaching disciplines.
Denis Rossignol, director general of the Centre de services scolaire des Haut- Bois-de-l’Outaouais, said French schools had all their positions filled by the deadline, but not all the educators have teaching certifications.
“We’re having trouble filling our positions with people who are qualified … It’s all over the world, not just in Quebec or Canada,” said Rossignol.
The 2023-2024 report by the Auditor General revealed the saturation of unqualified teachers is affecting the quality of educational services, which can lead to learning delays and ultimately dropouts, adding to learning delays acquired during the COVID pandemic.
“I don’t want parents to think that because the teachers are young people who aren’t legally qualified that we don’t have good supervision and students are at risk,” said Rossignol. “There is a certain amount of risk, but we do everything we can to make sure the children are well looked after by the staff.”
In fact, Rossignol said its success rates have increased despite having some schools staffed 50% with unqualified personnel.
The Ministry of Education has stated it plans to increase its network of close to 8,000 non-legally qualified teachers by 4,200 within three years.
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