Also, the proportion of vocational training graduates in the region is lower (-4%) than the Quebec average, not to mention that the Outaouais ranks third in the provincial ranking in terms of the employment rate among 15-year-olds and more. We also learn that more kindergarten students (33.5%) than elsewhere in Quebec (27.7%) have a vulnerability in at least one of the five areas of child development.
The president of the TEO, Manon Dufour, specifies that the greatest advantage of carrying out such an exercise is to allow elected officials, citizens and community organizations to mobilize, because, she says, academic perseverance goes well beyond the walls of a school.
“What emerges in the research we have done are the factors of vulnerability, the factors which make a student vulnerable and drop out. To each of these factors, research has shown that we can apply protective factors, but in order to be able to apply protective factors and mobilize a community, we must be able to know, in that community, what the factors are. vulnerability, to be able to target interventions, ”she explains.
She recalls that to better identify the issues, the efforts of the TEO are divided into three areas, namely the 0-5 age groups, 6-15 years and 16 years and over.
Recalling that young people are living “a year that no one else has lived in history”, Ms. Dufour invites their relatives to send them a word of encouragement during these JPS, which take place under the theme “A moment. For them”.
Impacts of the pandemic
The current “very particular” year could move the needles of academic success down here as elsewhere in the province, admits Pierre Boucher, who specifies, however, that it is still too early to see the concrete impacts.
“It remains that success, it goes much further than success in times of pandemic. It takes seven years to graduate. Yes, we are living a difficult year, but we will look at the overall picture. We will not work with data from an extraordinary year, ”he said.
One thing is certain, the impacts on mental health are felt: only during the first confinement, studies have shown that 51% of girls and 38% of boys aged 12 to 17 had a significant level of depressive or anxious symptoms. Among college students, 36% of girls and one in four boys (26%) said they felt a lot of psychological distress.
As part of the JPS, multiple activities are planned in the region by Friday, including a virtual meeting with spokesperson Laurent Duvernay-Tardif on Wednesday afternoon. The Super Bowl-winning doctor and footballer will simultaneously address students from more than 7,400 classes across Quebec.
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