5704 teachers missing for the start of the school year

Photo: Christinne Muschi The Canadian Press The Ministry of Education's dashboard will be updated weekly from now on, to take into account the recruitment efforts that are continuing in the school system, announced Education Minister Bernard Drainville.

Zacharie Goudreault

Published at 10:49 a.m. Updated at 3:09 p.m.

• Québec

More than 5,700 teaching positions are still to be filled in Quebec a week and a half before the start of the school year, Education Minister Bernard Drainville revealed Friday. While he wants to be reassuring, teachers are worried about the prospect that this shortage will increase their workload again this year.

In the last few days, school principals and then the Parti Québécois have shown themselves impatient to be able to consult this status report, which is evolving rapidly.

The Minister of Education, however, put an end to this suspense on Wednesday by announcing that as of August 12, the province's school service centres are reporting 5,704 teaching positions to be filled. Of the lot, 1406 are regular full-time positions, while 4298 are part-time positions.

“I'll tell you right away: is the shortage over? ? No, it's even less so since there are more students to educate this year,” the minister said Friday at a press conference in Montreal.

However, the minister described as “good news” the fact that this assessment is less bleak than the one presented by the Minister of Education on August 23, 2023, a few days before the start of the school year. At the time, he reported that there were 8,558 teachers missing from the education network. However, this assessment was based on data that had been provided by the CSSs before they had completed their annual assignment session, an important moment in the recruitment process. Result: A week later, the ministry reported 3,420 teaching positions, a number that dropped to 1,810 the following week.

“I'm not sure we're comparing apples to apples,” says the president of the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE) in an interview with Devoir , Mélanie Hubert, since the teacher recruitment process has been modified this year. Thus, “we are not really reassured” by the state of this shortage, continued the trade unionist, according to whom it will be “very difficult” for the CSS to quickly find takers for “the positions that remain to be filled” in the school network.

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Indeed, for the first time, the deadline for CSSs to complete the teacher assignment process was set this year for August 8 so that the vast majority of positions are filled three weeks before the start of the school year. An administrative change that undoubtedly helped limit the magnitude of the figures presented this Friday regarding the teacher shortage.

“It’s a major cultural change in the way the school network operates,” Mr. Drainville argued. “It’s mainly a way to get a much more accurate, much more reliable picture of the situation of our school staff now, before the start of the school year,” he continued. However, he acknowledged that this administrative change will not make teachers appear “by magic.”

“Obviously, we have to continue to find teachers. The advantage of the August 8 assignment is that you place all the teachers who are available and you can begin the process of filling the remaining vacancies,” he said. The minister thus appeared “confident” that the number of positions to be filled “will continue to decrease” in the coming days. “The goal, of course, is to get as close to zero as possible.”

Missing data

Several unions, for their part, have deployed that Minister Drainville did not reveal any data on Friday regarding the positions that remain to be filled among support staff, which include daycare educators, as well as professional staff, which includes remedial teachers and psychologists. However, the presence of these employees is essential in the classroom in order to lighten the workload of teachers and facilitate children's learning, recalls Mélanie Hubert. Last year, at this time, nearly 6,500 jobs remained to be filled in these two categories.

“The reception of children could be chaotic, among other things because several daycare services risk being overwhelmed. If the minister wants more predictability, he still has to present a complete picture of the situation,” the Confederation of National Trade Unions deplored on Friday, in a press release.

Jointed by Le Devoir, Minister Drainville’s office indicated that the data concerning these job groups should be put online “in the coming days.” The Ministry of Education’s dashboard, where data on staff shortages are collected, will also be updated every Wednesday until the start of the school year, in order to take into account the recruitment efforts that are continuing in the school network, the minister said on Friday.

A growing demand

The anticipated shortage of teachers is partly explained by the noted growth in the student population. Some 20,000 new students are anticipated in the province's elementary and secondary schools. However, this is similar growth to that noted last year and at the start of the 2019 school year, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

More details to follow.