Blais bailing on vulnerable students: CAQ

Education Minister François Blais confirmed on Monday that he is ending a joint venture with a foundation whose mission is to promote educational success.

Blais said he is putting an end to the six-year partnership with the Fondation Lucie et André Chagnon that funded a program called Réunir Réussir, which is aimed at keeping students in school.

It’s a mutual decision, according to Blais, who said it was time to reassess the results.

The Education Department and the foundation had each invested $25 million into the program over the last five years. The program, initially slated for five years, was extended for an additional year last year. The minister called 2015 a transition year and explained he is pulling funding to consider new ways to keep students in class.

“There will be different services,” said Blais.

“What he’s calling a transition year is really an abandonment year,” said Coalition Avenir Québec education critic Jean-François Roberge.

Both the CAQ and the Parti Québécois blasted the minister Monday for leaving vulnerable students in limbo.

“We were on the right path,” said PQ education critic Alexandre Cloutier.

“The mobilization for student success, it’s all falling apart. Réunir Réussir will cease its activities Sept. 30. Meanwhile, regional groups, youth forums, school boards, CEGEPs and universities have stopped funding stay-in-school programs because they’re also the victims of significant budget cuts.”

Roberge added he thought the minister was “clipping the wings” of students: “I think the dropout rates will increase in one year, two years, three years because of the decision that the government is making now.”

Blais argued the province still intends to invest millions of dollars in programs aimed at keeping students in school, but said details will only be unveiled later, when the government tables its new youth plan.

His government, he said, wants to bring student success rates to 80 per cent by 2020.

A report by the Education Department last year detailed the success rates of four cohorts — 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 — in all regions of Quebec. Overall, 60.0 to 62.6 per cent of high school students attending French-language schools graduated with diplomas in five to seven years. At English-speaking schools, the numbers were 71.9 to 76.2 per cent. The numbers showed more boys failed to graduate in both the English and French systems.