Despite recent cases of violence by teachers exposed in the media, the office of Minister of Education Bernard Drainville says the creation of a professional order of teachers is “not in [its] boxes “.
Yet this is a commitment made by the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) on many occasions when the party was in opposition.
In 2012, CAQ leader François Legault announced the creation of such an order if his party were to come to power.
In 2018, it was the party’s spokesperson for Education, Jean-François Roberge, who estimated in an interview with La Presse that “the creation of an order [would represent] an important milestone in ensuring the quality of the teaching given to our children.
However, he acknowledged that he could not “force it in” if the teachers objected.
The Federation of Teachers’ Unions (FSE) believes that “the profession is already largely regulated and the addition of a professional order would not bring anything more apart from bureaucracy”.
Without taking an official position on the creation of such an order, the president of the Federation of Parents’ Committees of Quebec (FCPQ), Kévin Roy, says that it would be “one more recourse for parents, at the same title as other professional orders”.
The Quebec Federation of Educational Establishment Directors (FQDE) has never commented on the creation of such an order, but its president Nicolas Prévost says today that it might be necessary to think about it.
“We will have to ask the question again. If for us, it can be one more lever to avoid this kind of situation, we will be there, “says Nicolas Prévost, referring to the case of the teacher at the Grands-Vents school, in Sainte-Marthe. -sur-le-Lac, which was recorded while she was making violent comments towards her Grade 1 students.
The principal of this school was replaced on Wednesday.
Without “hiding” behind the “complexity of collective agreements” for teachers, Nicolas Prévost observes that it is difficult to build a case against a teacher.
“We need to get up early and be very rigorous,” says Prévost, who adds that it takes “a lot of material to build a case” against a teacher.
Ontario has had such a college for 25 years. All decisions are public. In Quebec, between 2018 and 2022, the Ministry of Education received only 13 complaints against teachers.
