Quebec Education Minister opens door to paid teaching internships

Faced with major challenges in recruiting teachers for Quebec schools, Education Minister Bernard Drainville is opening the door to paid internships as a way of enhancing the value of the profession.

“Madame Déry (the Minister of Higher Education) and I are working to get there,” he said.

However, the minister was unable to give a clear timetable for implementing this measure.

“La Presse” reported on Thursday that Quebec universities are experiencing a decline in enrolment in teaching programs.

The Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, said she was looking “a little at the fourth teaching internship.”

“I know that there are issues in teaching. With all the measures we’re putting forward, there are still challenges. We know that, we’re looking at the numbers, but we’re working on it,” she said.

The latest provincial government data shows there are still 1,397 teaching positions to be filled in Quebec schools of Sept. 25.

Minister Drainville remained guarded on the issue of internships, however, preferring to praise his government’s actions to enhance the profession and talk about the importance of changing the “narrative”, as he finds the “prevailing discourse too negative.”

“If we are to reverse the trend, if we are to succeed in valuing education, and then get young people to choose careers in education, it’s not just the Minister of Education who’s going to be able to succeed, it’s all the players. I’m talking about the unions, I’m talking about the universities. I’m talking about Quebec society as a whole, including the media, because I think we have a collective responsibility because it’s our children’s future we’re talking about,” he said.

“As a society, we have to mobilize to value education, to talk about what’s being done that’s beautiful, to talk about the difference that teachers and school staff make in children’s lives,” added the Minister.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews