Quebec’s Lab-école project is a start in right direction
Deep changes are needed to Quebec’s socially segregated education system
I’ll admit it. When I first heard about Quebec’s Labécole project last spring, I was less than impressed. Why should a government-funded project on education be led by three celebrities whose areas of expertise in cooking and nutrition, physical education and architecture — while impressive — do not include education? Why was this not being led by teachers? Where were the educators, parents and students in all of this?
Today, I’ve changed my tune, if only slightly. At the very least, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Why? Because making education a priority in this province requires as many voices as possible.
Last week, the minister of education, Sébastien Proulx, officially launched the Labécole project at a school in Quebec City. Bolstered by a $3-million budget over two years and spearheaded by athlete Pierre Lavoie, chef and TV personality Ricardo Larrivée and architect Pierre Thibault, the Lab-école is tasked with coming up with a vision for reinventing Quebec schools for the future.
Lavoie, Larrivée and Thibault will lead the creation of five or six pilot project schools, the first of which are slated to open their doors in 2021. In the face of legitimate criticism from educators and teachers’ unions, the trio made an appearance on Tout le monde en parle Sunday night. They readily admitted that while they are not education experts, they want to leverage their own areas of expertise to put our schools back at the heart of our communities, to make them healthy places to learn and grow.
True, even if they are not educators or teachers, they are getting involved. That’s something.
I still have reservations. The Lab-école project falls within a broader government plan for improving student success in Quebec. Just ahead of the summer break, the Couillard Liberals allocated $1.8 billion for education over the next five years, much of which was earmarked for infrastructure and hiring new teachers. The government laid out a set of targets, including increasing the province’s high school graduation rate from the current 74 per cent to 85 per cent by 2030, while also reducing the graduation gap between boys and girls. But as others have noted, just how the government plans to meet these targets in the coming years remains a bit murky. Similarly, much about the Lab-école project also remains unclear. For example, Proulx has stated that the schools to be created as part of the pilot project will have to meet certain budgetary constraints, though he has not yet outlined exactly what they are.
By all means, let’s innovate and reach for the sky. Schools in Quebec haven’t changed their model in 50 years. But let’s not stop at architecture, sports and nutrition. Quebec’s problems with its education system go much deeper, and the needs are urgent.
Quebec’s literacy rate is among the worst in this country. The province’s secondary-school graduation rate is still among the lowest in Canada. Almost one in three boys in this province drops out of school before graduating.
A study released last year by Quebec’s Conseil supérieur de l’éducation (CSE), an independent body with a mandate to study and analyze education in the province and advise the government, found that Quebec’s school system was the least equitable in Canada.
They reference the strong presence of private schools and increasing numbers of specialized public secondary schools driving a trend of social segregation among students. The report notes that these trends have a particularly negative impact on vulnerable students in disadvantaged areas.
Here’s my takeaway. The political will to improve our schools is there, but it must be cultivated. It’s crucial that a range of actors get involved in this process. My hope is that the Lab-école will move beyond window dressing, and highlight some of the more fundamental challenges facing our education system. If nothing else, it’s a start.