Weeks away from the start of the new school year in Quebec, the shortage of qualified teachers will continue to be felt in classrooms across the province.
Amid retirements rising in the field, the school network is also expected to see a significant increase in the number of students enrolling in the coming months, according to La Presse.
About 20,000 new students may be added to the province’s public elementary and secondary schools during the year. To help cope with this influx of students, Quebec estimates around a thousand teachers would have to be added to the network.
Last year, school service centres were unable to find a teacher for every open position due to the labour shortage – and an increase in students could amplify the effects.
At the end of the school year, on May 20, despite the addition of unqualified teachers and teachers taking on a greater number of students, 471 teaching positions were still unfilled.
By mid-August last year, over 8,000 teaching positions had still not been filled in the network.
According to Quebec Education Minister Bernard Drainville, the increase in students to the network in the last year was due to temporary immigration and the increase in the number of refugees, adding that it has put pressure on schools already struggling to meet demand.
Some in the education network say new collective agreements, classroom assistance or new programs to quickly qualify teachers who have not studied teaching and who are already in the network, won’t not be enough to solve the issue.
Last spring, Drainville presented a new platform for school data in Quebec to give people in the network access to “relevant and reliable information at the right time.”
Next week, he is expected to receive an up-to-date portrait of the shortage of teachers and professionals in the network and will take stock of it in the days that follow.