5,000 teacher positions still vacant in Quebec, days away from back-to-school: poll
Posted August 18, 2023 12:04 pm.
Last Updated August 19, 2023 6:54 pm.
Back-to-school may be around the corner, but according to a poll by the Fédération québécoise des directions d’établissement d’enseignement (FQDE), 5,000 part-time and full-time teacher positions have yet to be filled. That’s a 72 per cent increase compared to last year. And it does not include schools in Montreal.
“The job isn’t as attractive anymore,” said Steven Le Sueur, president of the Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers (QPAT). “The workload, the class composition with all the special needs we have in our classes at this point, and not getting enough support.”
The internal survey was conducted amongst its 1077 directors in schools across the province, except for Montreal. The respondents indicated that 2,000 part-time and 3,000 full-time teaching positions remain vacant. Thousands of specialized positions would also still need to be filled including, 1,440 Special Education Technicians, 1,608 daycare educators, and 912 psychoeducators, speech therapists and psychologists.
“More and more difficult situations, more and more special needs and at-risk kids in our classrooms,” said Le Sueur. “We need the adequate support for these classrooms. Remuneration is in there as well – it’s got to be competitive. If you’re a teacher graduating close to the border of Ontario, chances are we’re losing them to Ontario.”
According to a 2020 Statistics Canada report, Quebec had the lowest starting salary for educators teaching primary to secondary education among other provinces and territories at $42,000.
Quebec Education Minister Bernard Drainville said Wednesday that he hopes to have one adult per class for the start of the school year – and ideally that person would have a bachelor’s degree, but it won’t be a requirement.
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He invited retirees to come back to the classroom or those who did not have a degree in teaching.
But for elementary school teacher Alisha Winter, teaching is not as simple as it looks.
“It’s a lot more these days than delivering material,” Winter said. “For example, de-escalation tactics, helping students that have learning difficulties. Those kinds of things anybody just walking on the street isn’t necessarily going to have the expertise in those areas that someone whose gone through the Bachelor of Education or Master of Education is going to be able to apply to their profession.”
After recently graduating with a bachelor’s degree in education, Winter said securing a job was easy since many schools are hiring and still left with unfilled positions even though the new school year is a few weeks away.
However, she alone is teaching four different grades and five different subjects – from English literature to social studies, history, geography, and home economics.
Representatives from the FQDE and teachers unions have reportedly said this situation is extremely worrying and everything must urgently be done to ensure the teachers who are still in the system do not leave as well.
