New cuts from the Legault government in education

The Legault government is preparing to make cuts of $200 million in education, news that has been very poorly received in the already shaken network.

From this amount, school service centers will be cut by $123 million and private schools by $7 million. Other cuts of $70 million will be determined later.

The Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, cited budgetary constraints to explain this decision. During the last budget, an envelope of $22.5 billion was allocated to education.

We invest so much because we believe in education, in our schools, in our young people, in our staff, but we are all aware that we are in a difficult budgetary context, he argued. We must respect the historic budgets granted to us. The budgets of the Ministry of Education must be respected and the envelopes must be used as efficiently as possible.

Mr. Drainville specified that of the $22.5 billion devoted to education in Quebec, $16.7 million is directed to school service centers. L’effort requested by the provincial government CSS represents 0.73% of their budget.

The reality on the ground varies from one region to another, from one school service center to another. This is why we ask them to make their own choices to be more effective.indicated the CAQ minister.

On the other hand, the expectations are clear: there must be no impact on student services. We know that this is not an easy exercise. However, if we want to respect our budgets, the CSS must also do their part to the tune of less than one percent.

It’s deplorable

This decision by the Legault government was very poorly received by the education community.

It’s deplorable, particularly in the middle of a school year, like this, when all the forecasts have been made. The expenses were spread out over the year, the expenses were already in place. It’s really deplorable that the government decides to cut the network again this yearlaunched Mélanie Hubert, president of the Autonomous Federation of Education, in an interview with -.

She believes it is unrealistic to hope that these cuts will not have repercussions on student services, as Mr. Drainville requests.

To think that the class evolves in a vacuum and that it is not subject to the pressures of the ecosystem in which it lives is a utopia, it is a view of the mind.

Nicolas Prévost, of the Fédération québécoise des establishments d’enseignement (FQDE), is of the same opinion. It’s a bit utopian to think that there will be no impact on student services from the moment there are cuts, he asserted. We will try to minimize it as much as possible, but to say that there will be no impact is false.

Mr. Prévost recalls that the education network was already facing cuts of $400 million in school maintenance as well as cuts in francization.

We know the current budgetary context in Quebec and we see that education will also be affected. It’s a bit surprising and it’s a shame for the students to see that we weren’t able to analyze more in the long term. […]. We are returning to a period of austerity and nothing tells us that the news to come will be good.

With information from Diana Gonzalez