LETTER TO THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION
Quebec, January 4, 2021
Minister,
In exactly 7 days, thousands of children will be back on the school benches for the stretch before the end of the 2020-2021 school year. As the official opposition critic for Education, I wanted to share with you my two main concerns, namely to ensure a return to school for students on January 11, but especially that this return is done safely.
For the sake of making this comeback together next week, I would like to submit to you some very specific proposals.
First, we suggest that the Director of Public Health can have the help of a deputy director dedicated exclusively to education. The large number of outbreaks in schools last fall is a testament to the lack of public health knowledge in schools.
This morning, a group of experts comprising more than 300 scientists, asked Ottawa to update the provincial guidelines in order to recognize the role of ventilation and aerosols in the transmission of the virus. You cannot make recommendations from these specialists who are sounding the alarm again to the authorities. We have been repeating this for months and we ask you again to recognize without further delay the risks associated with aerosol transmission and to provide schools with air purifiers for next Monday, January 11.
While we recognize that distance education remains a solution in the event of an outbreak, we believe that face-to-face education must remain our common goal. Since last September, we have offered you work-study training, whether for days or even halfdays. We believe that recent data on failure rates has a direct link with distance education in addition to contributing to the distress of young people isolated at home. Allowing young people to physically attend their school can only be beneficial for them.
Some families have expressed a desire for several months to receive distance education entirely because of family health problems. However, certain situations reported in the media have shown the government’s lack of flexibility for these families. We hope that, upon request and for health reasons, a student can receive full-time home education by the end of the school year.
Our political party has proposed, on several occasions, to set up mobile screening clinics in schools and to make rapid tests available as soon as a case of Covid is confirmed in a school. We reiterate this request and insist more than ever on the need to quickly carry out these tests directly in our schools. The health of the entire population is at stake.
Beyond school organization, I remain extremely concerned about the educational success of students. Worrying data reported in the media last fall point to a dramatic increase in the failure rate, but also a significant decrease in the motivation of young people. It is for this reason that we ask you to hold by the end of January an urgent meeting with the players in the field in order to put in place the plan that we have been asking you for months.
According to the data available on your ministry’s website, on January 11, some secondary school students will have to take ministerial exams. In elementary school, the tests will begin on January 14. It is an announced failure! You must rule immediately on these trials which could have a disastrous impact on the success of young people, but also on their perseverance, their motivation and their psychological distress.
We offer you in exchange to set up a real school remedial plan. Our young people need help to make up for the weeks, see the months of delay accumulated during the 2019-2020 school year. We suggest that you set up a refundable tax credit of $ 500 to allow families to have access to tutoring. University students may be called in to assist students who are having difficulties.
We finally ask you to allow currently unused public places such as museums, science centers and libraries to lend their premises in order to allow homework help or any other support for schools that need space. additional due to public health standards.
In closing, I offer you, Mr. Minister, my best health wishes for 2021. Please accept, Mr. Minister, my best regards.
Marwah Rizqy |
Liberal critic for education
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