Underneath this is the simple fact that educational standards in Quebec are disgracefully bad. A frightening proportion of kids never graduate high school either, and making it into McGill is near the upper reaches of achievement for those that do.
This is going to provoke a lot of kneejerk "but it's worse in [x]". No, in the developed world it's probably not. There are lots of dynamics unique to the Quebec situation which allow this to perpetuate.
"Last year alone, only 40.6 per cent of the boys followed in the 2007 cohort at the French-language Commission scolaire de Montréal graduated in five years."
That. Growing up in Quebec, I can honestly say that my mathematical education was really, really bad.
I remember spending a whole year where we had no math teacher, so instead we had one of the french language teacher teach the class. We did mostly math related crosswords.
All the kids were failing the class, so they simply made us all pass. Great job, school.
I still have a lot of issues because of this. Hard to learn advanced concepts when your basics were screwed up.
That being said, one of the beautiful reason that not many Quebecers don't make it to university is the fact that the CEGEP can throw you into the work force for a low price and a short amount of time. I wouldn't want this part to change. High school however? The whole program is a mess.
The public French school boards tend to have lower passing rates in maths and sciences then the public English boards though, chalk it up to the shit-show you need to be allowed to learn in English or whatever else might be at play. But the math and science reforms that Quebec implemented 8 years torpedoed basic math and science proficiency across the board.
What makes it so hard to find a math teacher in Quebec?
I've traveled through Quebec a number of times, including a bicycle trip that went through Chibougamau - as a visitor, I love the province. I can understand that some remote areas of Quebec are hard to staff effectively. Is this more than a rural/ urban issue?
We have a lot of underfunded school. The particular school I am talking about is next to a train track and a metal foundry (everything was covered with yellow dust and there was smog all over) and uses a parking space as a recreation area (hey, you can play hockey on it during winter...). In 2009, one of the wall/window fell during winter and the kids had to wear their coats indoor for a month, since plastic garbage bags and duct tape was all that was covering the hole.
As for what happened to the math teacher in question, I believe that she had left the school because she had to teach multiple groups (can't remember how many groups, but it was without a doubt too many) that were too bigs and filled with kids that shouldn't have been there in the first place. Learning disabilities, violent teens, etc. all crammed in a small room, groups of... I think it was 35 students.
Well to be fair, we don't know that the 6 students called were from Quebec. McGill is a fairly popular school for kids from Ontario and the Maritimes provinces too.
And Americans. It's a cheaper (or was given recent international tuition increase) option for those who can't afford even in state tuition in some states.
The problem is that good students are mostly in private schools and specialized programs (international programs) so "regular classes" in public schools contain a lot of low performing students and students with disabilities.
My gf is a public high school teacher in Montreal and they do miracles everyday with the low amount of resources that they have to work with. She has a M.Sc. in her specialization (history), but do mostly special education tasks since the student level are so low.
So if 60% of the 80% condemned to use the public school system are failing to achieve the already lowered standards this is mere nuance?
What you have in Quebec is an elite (both english and french speaking) that gifts their children a private bilingual education with actual competition while they actively deny those rights to the rest of the public. Poor monolingual french speakers are actively screwed from birth to such a degree that they don't even notice how bad it is.
I'm just saying that we must be careful citing CSDM numbers because they represent a special situation. The CSDM have a lot of first generation immigrants, poor students, students with learning disabilities, etc. The middle class students are in good schools in the suburbs or in private schools.
The CSDM in Montreal has such a bad reputation that if you're not accepted in a specialized program (let say, international baccalaureate), you go to a private school if you can afford it (4k$/year). And don't let me start about union rules for new teachers...
On the other hand, if you're a special ed teacher, CSDM is hiring like crazy. Not so much for math, social science, french, English teachers though.
The CSDM is not a special situation at all. You can go to the townships, Lanaudiere, through every Montreal suburb and find the same phenomenon at work.
The root problem is Quebec's monolingual french speakers have been force fed a diet of anti-intellectual nonsense for so long they no longer see the value of education. Hockey is seen as the way out, but failing that the government will always be guilt tripped into paying welfare for them.
This. But this is not because "good students are mostly in private school", it is because public school is just bad.
I am a Quebec resident and I have been, for most of my high school, in a private school. I went one year to a public school: the level of education was SO poor and the students' motivation was the lowest I had ever seen.
There is an huge disrepency between public/private sector and people are trying to cut down private school funding[1].
I've seen both, and public school is a disgrace, no kid should have to go through this. I've seen teachers insulting students (and vice versa), teachers being hangover on a class day and telling the students to read their book, teachers raging against students (and vice versa) and just classes being generally content-less.
EDIT: Not saying we should abolish public school, but it HAS to improve. My experience (and what I have seen of people going into higher eduction) was horrible. Private school has good students because it has (majorly) good teachers (and some selection, I admit), whereas public school has a dominance of bad teachers.
This is going to provoke a lot of kneejerk "but it's worse in [x]". No, in the developed world it's probably not. There are lots of dynamics unique to the Quebec situation which allow this to perpetuate.
Edit to add a useful reference: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/dismal-dropout-rates-...
"Last year alone, only 40.6 per cent of the boys followed in the 2007 cohort at the French-language Commission scolaire de Montréal graduated in five years."