We will ultimately have to wait until the start of the 2025 school year before content to prevent violence at school is taught to all Quebec students on a compulsory basis in class.
At the end of a day of mobilization on the same theme, which brought together more than 300 people in Quebec on Friday, the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, indicated that these training courses for students will be “offered” to the network school this fall.
“I hope that as many students as possible will follow this training” next year, he said.
The contents to be taught will become compulsory the following year, in 2025-2026
at a rate of 7 hours for primary and 9 hours for secondary, his office subsequently clarified.
When presenting the school violence and bullying prevention plan last fall, Minister Drainville rather suggested that these courses would be compulsory from the start of the 2024 school year.
At the Autonomous Education Federation (FAE), it is noted that this additional content will be “sprinkled” over all other subjects, since they will be added to the concepts already taught in class.
“Sometimes the wind blows hard and when you sprinkle, it gives what it gives,” says its vice-president, Annie Primeau.
An action plan to improve?
At the end of the day, the minister also claimed to have “learned a lot” during this meeting and is considering the possibility of improving his action plan over the coming months.
Bernard Drainville notably underlined the importance of not only punishing a child bully, but also of making him understand “why he took these actions”.
In certain regions, community organizations welcome students who have been suspended from school in order to help them “progress”, a model that interests the minister. “If we don’t want this to happen constantly, we have to defuse the causes of this violence,” he said.
Quebec hopes that this meeting will make it possible to further mobilize the school network to counter violence at school, a phenomenon that is increasing “not just in number, but in intensity as well,” indicated the minister.
Quebec has also undertaken to better document incidents of violence in Quebec schools, an operation which involves in particular a better definition of these events in order to paint a less disparate portrait than what currently exists.
“The objective, in the end, is that our children are happy at school, that they do not have fear in their stomachs when they go to school in the morning,” said Mr. . Drainville.
In the school network, several stakeholders welcomed Quebec’s desire to do more in this area, but wonder what means will be made available to them to achieve this.
“All people do their best, but often, they have their tongues wagging,” said Jacques Landry, president of the union federation which represents education professionals.
“We need time and resources for it to produce results,” he added, while emphasizing that the shortage of personnel remains an issue.
Among professional positions, which include psychologists and psychoeducators, more than one position in ten (11.5%) is currently vacant, according to data from the Ministry of Education.
