The Jamésie and Abitibi-Témiscamingue Education Union held its regional council in La Sarre on Friday.
On the sidelines of the meeting, an action mobilization was organized in front of the offices of the Lac-Abitibi school service centre.
The members wanted to illustrate the composition of a primary class in the region.
Participants dressed in green representing students who are progressing normally, in yellow for students who need frequent intervention and in red for those who require constant intervention.
According to the vice-president of the union, Cindy Lefebvre, almost half of the students in the classes have special needs, both in elementary and secondary school.
The Jamésie and Abitibi-Témiscamingue Education Union held a mobilization action in front of the offices of the Lac-Abitibi school service center.
She insists on the shortage of personnel which affects schools and which is the main concern in education. We already have figures that are emerging for the next school year and here I can talk to you about positions only, we are not talking about contracts. For several service centers, there is a shortage of twenty teachers in post for the start of the school year and there it is not to mention contracts, mentions the union official.
For example, for Rouyn-Noranda, there will be no less than 80 contracts that will be given at the start of the school year, then about twenty positions and obviously we will not have people to fill all that, explains Cindy Lefebvre who adds that Rouyn-Noranda is nevertheless the locality least affected by this shortage in the region.
According to her, the use of non-legally qualified teaching staff is very common in schools in Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Jamésie.
According to Guylaine Leclerc, in Quebec, more than 30,000 teachers, mainly substitutes, are hired without qualifying training in teaching.
This week, a report by Auditor General Guylaine Leclerc revealed that more than a quarter of classroom staff in Quebec did not have a teaching diploma during the 2020-2021 school year.
There are people not legally qualified who arrive in the middle and who, faced with the magnitude of the task, finally give up settling in the network, notes the manager who insists on improving working conditions to attract new recruits.
The first vice-president of the Federation of Education Unions, Brigitte Bilodeau, was present in La Sarre.
She says governments have failed to take alarms raised about staff shortages seriously and have failed to document the causes of the shortage. From the union's surveys of teachers leaving the profession, there are two things that stand out, the heaviness of the task and the composition of the class, she says.
She specifies that the shortage of teaching staff is more acute in remote areas.
We have several people who are not legally qualified currently in the schools. There are people who might want to continue if they were given the conditions to do so. It is important, I think, to find solutions to ensure that these people can acquire training because without training they will certainly leave, explains the trade unionist.
She believes that measures must be put in place to allow unqualified personnel to practice the profession.
