It’s a strategy that we teach in the first marketing and communications courses: publish a news story on a Friday or at the start of the holidays. The Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, a journalist and public relations specialist by profession, has understood this principle well.
While the university community was completing corrections for the winter term, the minister unveiled the new university funding policy in mid-June.
Four days later, at the start of the CEGEP holidays, the politician released the report of the working group on “challenge courses”, i.e. the first philosophy and literature courses, although received a year ago. On the subject of artificial intelligence, as the technology spreads to cell phones, the minister’s silence turns into a draft.
Support missing
In terms of university funding, the government is repeating the documented failure of the Perspective Québec scholarships by offering incentives to universities for registrations and graduation in areas where there is a labor shortage, which is contrary to their mission, which is to transmit all knowledge. More than ever, the government is subjecting these establishments to the immediate needs of the market. What’s more, university establishments will be subjected to a CAQ regime of austerity with, at best, a freezing of their credits, well below inflation.
Regarding “challenge courses” at CEGEP, the working group’s recommendations are full of ambitious ideas to promote and improve general education. However, the latest Girard budget does not allow fixed costs to be assumed. Will the solutions that emerge from discussions next fall be subject to the CAQ budgetary straitjacket?
Finally, teachers who have just spent hours correcting will confirm how alone they feel in the face of generative artificial intelligence. AI is becoming more complex and the sophisticated plagiarism it makes possible is becoming almost impossible to prove. Instead of improving course content, should these teachers resolve to become cheating police? While, for several weeks, the minister has had the very relevant report from the Higher Council of Education, she avoids playing her role as leader bringing together the actors of the network to establish a framework for AI.
Defend higher education?
Seriously, the members of our federation, which represents 85% of CEGEP teachers and 80% of university teaching staff, are wondering if the minister really wants to defend the higher education network to her colleagues and the Prime Minister.
After six years of CAQ government, after the embarrassing absence of former minister Danielle McCann, higher education has the right to demand a portfolio holder who fiercely defends a network placing human beings at the heart of its priorities and which supports public, adequate, unconditional and predictable refinancing of establishments rather than being the showcase of the government’s economic trio.
Photo provided by FNEEQ-CSN
Benoît Lacoursière, President, National Federation of Teachers of Quebec (FNEEQ–CSN)
