Minister offers refreshing vision on education
It’s March Break in Quebec, that welcome winter holiday when teachers and students alike get to chill out and recharge their batteries.
If anyone is up for a little light reading — on a beach somewhere or in front of the fire at home — Education Minister Sébastien Proulx’s new book would make for some interesting fare.
No, Proulx hasn’t penned your typical political tell-all to polish his public profile ahead of this fall’s Quebec election. (Although cynics may be tempted to dismiss it as such.)
Instead, Un Québec libre est un Québec qui sait lire et écrire, published by Septentrion, is more of a treatise, the delineation of his vision for the future of education in this province by a minister who is clearly passionate about his portfolio. It even includes black-and-white thumbnails of some of his paintings, and all proceeds from sales go to the Literacy Foundation.
It’s as unusual as it is intriguing.
Proulx admits in his prologue that he came to the job of education minister by accident rather than ambition. A lawyer by profession, he was first elected more than a decade ago under the banner of the now-defunct Action démocratique du Québec. He returned to the National Assembly for the Quebec Liberals in a 2015 byelection. His first cabinet role was as family minister. In 2016, he inherited the education portfolio when the chosen minister, Pierre Moreau, collapsed during a health crisis.
Proulx became the fourth education minister in two years in Premier Philippe Couillard’s government. Unlike the good doctor Yves Bolduc, who seemed to see the gig as a demotion (“No child will die” if school boards can’t buy any new library books, Couillard’s first pick for the position once said), Proulx has been inspired by this important responsibility. Just how much so is evident in the fact he spent his Christmas holidays penning this manifesto.
The book is a call to arms — to students, teachers, unions, principals, bureaucrats, parents, politicians and the public at large — to reimagine the Quebec school system of tomorrow, from designing buildings that reflect the value we as a society should put on education to how we spark a love of learning from the youngest age.
It’s sure to ruffle feathers among those resistant to change and garner skepticism from anyone suspicious of the minister’s motives.
“It must be said that our society has more guardians of the status quo than accelerators of change,” Proulx writes. “We have to stop seeing change as a threat.”
And it’s sure to draw cries of hypocrisy from critics over the chokehold this Liberal government put on education early in its mandate, before deciding to reinvest in it as a major priority.
Proulx defends certain decisions and policy orientations even as he seeks to provoke introspection and contemplation.
While extolling the importance of teachers, he floats the controversial idea of making their training more rigorous by requiring them to have a master’s degree instead of a bachelor’s degree and creating a professional order.
“It will take a revolution to get to a level of valorization where we select from the elite to occupy the most important job in our society,” he writes.
In a dig at unions, he laments that much of the discussion about teachers revolves around labour relations and work conditions rather than the essence of their essential role.
“The world of education in Quebec must get over the interminable debates about structure and the responsibilities of one versus another,” he says. “We have to seize the essential. The fundamentals. We have to give ourselves a destination and the means to get there.”
Proulx defends Quebec’s policy of subsidizing private schools and allowing schools with specialized vocations and stringent selection criteria to exist in the public sphere — something the Conseil supérieur de l’éducation argues entrenches inequality and undermines regular schools.
“What we need to do is offer more students more possibilities, not less!”
Proulx broaches the Liberals’ failed attempt to cancel school board elections because of abysmal voter turnout. Even if the government abandoned this effort, he says the question of why the public is so disengaged in this democratic exercise hasn’t gone away.
“Far be it for me to offer any lessons. But I am of the opinion that we need to redefine the role of an elected school board representative and that given this context it’s a pertinent moment for this reflection.”
Proulx also acknowledges that Quebec’s huge educational bureaucracy is often seen as slow, conservative and rigid — perceptions that undermine its credibility. While its role in safeguarding the coherence and quality of education is “primordial,” he also states bluntly: “We can do better.”
“The ministry ... cannot punish those who dare to dream. It must learn to get to know them, reach out to them. And win their confidence.”
It’s not that Proulx has all the answers or a monopoly on good ideas. But what he seems to have is an openness to novel thinking and a willingness to truly try to modernize Quebec education — and make it the best it can be.
Realists might say he’s dreaming in Technicolor by ignoring all manner of practical and political considerations (like budgets and labour contracts). But when is the last time an education minister took an intellectual approach to the job and dared to dream big? It’s kind of refreshing.
While it certainly shouldn’t be the last word on Quebec education, Proulx’s book should be required reading and a starting point for a vast and necessary societal debate.