The idea of condensing the training of future teachers to stop the shortage is received coldly in the teaching community. “I choked on my coffee,” bluntly states Nancy Goyette, a researcher in well-being psychology and professor at the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières (UQTR), who believes this idea does not hold water.
Education Minister Bernard Drainville says he is seriously considering reducing the length of the baccalaureate in teaching from four to three years. He has even commissioned officials to study this route, which would allow future teachers to be trained more quickly. To achieve this, training would be condensed and courses shortened.
We’ve really reached the end, that doesn’t really make any sense.
continues Mrs. Goyette.
Remember that the training was extended to four years in 1994. because the training was not adequate enough for teachers to be able to function successfully in environments with sufficient experience for our students.
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I think today, the biggest losers from this are still the teachers and the students, at the end of the day.
According to her, the training shortcuts
will not help promote the profession and The lack of qualification will cause a great environmental overload.
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Quebec is also considering transforming the fourth year into a fully paid internship. Nancy Goyette does not adhere to this way of doing things either.
It’s a little bit like being in a field of unicorns to think that we will be able to organize in the communities to adequately train these people in terms of internships, because practical training is something complex. Not everyone can train people in the workplace, even if you are a teacher. You need a certain knowledge of the programs and (you have to) also know how to support these people who arrive.
The researcher in educational psychology of well-being believes that one of the solutions involves a four-year hybrid training of future teachers to Also make sure to organize training so that students can have summer courses, weekend courses or evening courses to help in the communities, because what we need, many times, are replacements and not necessarily long-term contracts.
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For her part, the president of the Federation of Education Unions was surprised to learn about these scenarios through the media.
The government clarified that nothing had yet been decided.
