“There is a lot of distress and anger”: teachers denounce cuts in francization

Teachers occupy the offices of five ministers and elected officials, including that of Minister of Education Bernard Drainville, in Lévis, Friday morning, to denounce the budgetary restrictions that have led to cuts in francization in adult education centers.

The offices of ministers Jean-François Roberge, Jean Boulet, Eric Girard as well as deputy leader Mathieu Lévesque are also targeted.

These teachers are demanding meetings with elected officials in order to make them aware of the closure of numerous francization classes which have taken place in recent weeks.

In Quebec, the Capital school service center announced last week the closure of almost all of its francization groups for adults from the end of January.

Around 1,300 students are affected and around a hundred teachers will lose their jobs.

“There is a lot of distress, anger and incomprehension” among teachers and their students, says Marianne Bois, educational advisor in francization at the Louis-Jolliet center in Quebec, who has taught there since 2018.

“It makes no sense,” she adds, since the waiting list for these courses has never been so long.

Human dramas

These budgetary restrictions lead to human tragedies, continues M^me Drink. Immigrants will not be able to access the job market if they do not master French well, while others will have to abandon their plans to obtain permanent residence if they do not master the French language well enough.

Quebec says for its part that these students will be redirected to other francization courses offered by the Ministry of Immigration. However, the waiting time to access it is already very long and the level of services is incomparable, says the educational advisor.

The mobilization which is taking place on Friday is organized by the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE), which is opposed to the “dismantling” of the offer of francization services in the school network.

The union federation criticizes the Legault government for being “insensitive to the disastrous consequences for people with an immigrant background” and specifies that it is a “highly peaceful” mobilization action.