English school boards in Quebec want to be exempted from the Drainville reform, otherwise they will go to court. But the Legault government does not intend to exempt them from the new rules of governance.
Allowing the Minister of Education to appoint and dismiss principals and even overturn one of their decisions is an “undue interference” undermining the constitutional rights of the English-speaking minority to manage their schools, says the English-speaking School Boards Association of Quebec.
“With Bill 23 as drafted, QESBA and its 9 member school boards would have no choice but to initiate a new constitutional challenge,” President Stephen Burke warned Thursday of passage in parliamentary committee. The Association is already contesting in court the previous school reform of the Legault government.
The new powers that Bernard Drainville wants to give himself will transform the school directors general into simple “executives of the minister”, added Russell Copeman.
The latter judges that subjecting the English school boards to this new bill is an act of “provocation”.
“Clearly, either through a lack of understanding or worse, deliberately, the current government of Quebec does not appreciate the scope and breadth of the constitutional rights of Quebec’s English-speaking community to manage and control our education system. “, insisted the former Liberal MP for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.
The Association made a point of recalling that the English network’s academic success rate is 87%, a result five points higher than the Quebec average.
No exemption for Anglos
Minister Drainville replied that he does not subscribe to the same conclusions as the QESBA. “Bill 23 respects the rights of the English-speaking community,” he said. His press attaché clarified that the government does not intend to exempt the English school boards from the project to reform the governance of the school network.
2023-06-08 07:06:36
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