Dean Shareski: What makes Quebec K12 education different from many other provinces and again, all provinces have their own little sort of nuances and uniqueness. Quebec probably more so than any province in Canada has quite a few differences so just help people understand, like how Quebec education works and maybe some of the, I don’t know, whatever they are challenges or opportunities that exist within those that structure.

Cindy Finn: Yeah. So, one of the biggest differences really when you look at other places in Canada is that the system of education is organized according to language. So, since 1998, we moved from a confessional system board where we had Catholic, non-Catholic. It was basically Catholic, Protestant, but in 98 it shifted to linguistic school boards: English, French.

That meant that to be considered an English right English language rights holder because of the legislation here, you can only attend what are called English language schools if you have eligibility to do so. And that was the case prior to 1998, but with the creation of those linguistic boards, that line really got very well… so what it means is, you know, there’s certain provisions. I’m in a network of nine school boards that have the authority to provide education in English, but even that’s a bit of a misnomer because we’re in Quebec.

Quebec’s primarily a French speaking province. It is the language of about 90% of the province. We’re, in essence, a bilingual school board. All of our programs are either bilingual or go all the way up to 100%.
In French academic subjects with a bit of English and working language of English.

So that’s pretty unique because our students really go through a process where they come out pretty bilingual. We have really high success rates in English and in French and that’s not unique to us at Lester B. Pearson. That’s just the reality in that English speaking network, whereas in the French sector there are 60 French school boards and they educate primarily in French, and they do English as a second language, but in a very sort of basic way, it’s not by any stretch bilingual education. So, it is a different experience depending on where you find yourself and also with just the way things are organized geographically. Montreal really is the metropolis and most English-speaking Quebecers live in Montreal or in the area around Montreal.

It’s a very different experience to go to a school in a Lester Pearson School Board because we do have communities that are primarily English-speaking, but about an hour outside of Montreal, you’re very much in a French speaking milieu. There’s some very different characteristics that make up the parent communities outside of Montreal, where you might have Francophone parents who, for whatever reason, have the legal right to send their children to an English language school board. They do so because they would like their children to be bilingual. That’s an interesting feature as well. What is different is the way education here is organized, as I said earlier.

We start at four years old and we do a full day kindergarten at four and full day kindergarten at age 5. And then students go until Grade 6, and then our high school system starts in Grade 7 and it goes from 7 to 11. Then you graduate and then you have options so you can go to if you weren’t successful and you still had some credits or you wanted to improve your marks, you could go into adult education.

Or if you wanted to learn a trade, become a plumber or a hairdresser or a nursing assistant, you can go into our vocational program. So that’s unique as well because in many other places that’s part of the post-secondary network in Quebec, it’s under the purview of the school board. So we have 8 centres, two who do adults education for secondary credit and six that offer vocational training programs in I think we have close to 40 programs.

So that’s also something unique to the Quebec system that it’s under our jurisdiction. Then as soon as you’re 16, you can move over if you wanted to start to learn a trade, if you have certain credits. Depending on the program you want to go into, you can you can become a plumber or electrician, healthcare assistant, dental assistant, pharmacy like they they opportunities are endless and so it’s.

Dean Shareski: That seems very that seems very European.

Cindy Finn: Yes. And in fact, a number of years ago there were delegations of people that went over to Belgium and France and Germany and were inspired by some of those when we had our curriculum reform in the late 90s, the decision was made to keep these programs in the youth sector, as we call it, and under the purview of school boards and create what are now known as continuing education centers, so as of age 16, students can move over into those pathways and what’s also unique we we’ve also developed some pathways in recent years for students, even in the younger grades in, in secondaries, they’re struggling and really their path to graduation doesn’t seem quite certain at that point. They can do training to get into the workforce so they can do semi-skilled or practical experiences working in actual industry to get hopefully employment and move into the world of work a little sooner and then many bridge back come back to us for Adult Education to finish up their courses, write their ministry exams and so we have a we have a lot of opportunities for our students to be successful and by and large, it’s another point of pride that we graduate about 90% of the students who come to us. And there are other programs for the students who do have special needs and struggles. So, we’re very proud of the success that our students enjoy and recognized. Success comes in many forms. It’s not just about crossing the stage with a diploma. It’s about setting people up for that.

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