The fierce competition to recruit teachers is felt even in the private sector, where directors say they are “embarrassed” to succeed in hiring at the expense of other schools, so heartbreaking is the situation.
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“Today, the person we interviewed already has a job elsewhere. That’s it, the game», testifies Jaziel Petrone, director general of Saint-Paul College, in Varennes.
“I’m hurting someone else. It’s excruciating for someone who loves education […] I am sad and embarrassed when I look at the situation of my colleagues in public.
“All children in Quebec should have access to quality education,” he insists.
Quebec is currently experiencing a record staff shortage in schools, with more than 8,500 teachers missing from the public network a few days before the start of the school year, Minister Bernard Drainville revealed on Wednesday.
This shortage is also felt by private schools because they recruit from the same pool of teachers, although there are no figures to quantify their needs.
“This year [le recrutement] was more difficult than it has ever been,” notes David Bowles, president of the Federation of Private Education Establishments (FEEP).
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Photo d’archives Chantal Poirier / JdeM
David Bowles, Principal of Charles-Lemoyne College in Longueuil
On the job offers site of the FEEP, we still found on Wednesday a panoply of positions to be filled in French, in math, in science, and even as primary school teachers.
Also unqualified
At the Séminaire de Sherbrooke, there will be two teachers this year who are not legally qualified, that is to say who do not have a teaching certificate, a solution increasingly used in public schools, for lack of candidates.
However, these are candidates of choice, who have a bachelor’s or master’s degree in the disciplines in question, specifies director Jacques Gravel. In addition, they will be mentored by experienced colleagues.
At Collège Sainte-Anne in Lachine, it is reported that it uses less than 10 non-legally qualified teachers out of more than 250.
It must be said that in the recruitment game, private schools have advantages that go far beyond their favored clientele.
Their groups are already formed in the spring. Unlike public schools, they are not forced to form new groups at the last minute because of the many moves.
In addition, their hiring process is less bureaucratic, more agile and more human, emphasize the directors interviewed.
“I don’t feel like bragging about it”
However, no establishment is immune to unpleasant surprises. “In my school, there is a person who falls on sick leave. We were told [mardi]“, illustrates David Bowles, who is also director of Charles-Lemoyne College, on the South Shore of Montreal.
“It’s fragile, you can feel it,” says David Lehoux of the Collège de Lévis. “There are fewer candidates than before.”
The Collège de Lévis has managed to fill its positions so that there will be no break in service next week.
“But I don’t feel like bragging about it,” said Mr. Lehoux, who prefers to “keep a little embarrassment” in the face of the scale of the crisis.
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