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Making
the grades: the promised fixes for education
When it comes to education, this election's battle for the hearts and minds of Quebecers is all about offering more: more money, more classroom time and more choices. But while each party has an education plank its platform, none of them have staked out a position as its champion. Compared to health care, taxes and family issues, education has been a backburner issue. One reason may be that the PQ and Liberal education platforms are so similar.
It's the ADQ—which is out of the running to form the next government—that has brought the field of education its most radical proposal: the voucher system. Education Vouchers The ADQ's education voucher proposal would see parents given the per-student education subsidy that currently goes from the province directly to school boards. Parents would then take that money to the school of their choice. ADQ leader Mario Dumont proposes to have a pilot project in place for an urban high school by the 2004/05 school year. However, the idea is not popular with teachers, unions, school boards or the other political parties. The head of the English Montreal School Board calls the proposal a "very disruptive" attempt to divert the best students out of the public stream. "We don't really appreciate [losing] our top students … because they stimulate the other students," says John Simms. But Sylvain Bernier, an associate researcher with the Montreal Economic Institute, says a voucher system would let parents choose a better school if their neighbourhood school is "not performing well." Putting vouchers in the hands of parents, Bernier says, "is a very powerful incentive for these [lesser] schools to improve and to try to propose new educational programs, [and] new methods of teaching so they can retain their parents." Opponents also suggest that a voucher system would force many smaller public schools to close. Among those critics is PQ leader Bernard Landry, who estimates that vouchers would lead to the demise of about 400 schools. Landry also argues that vouchers would be "detrimental to the social mixture we must have in Quebec" because they would congregate like-minded people in the same schools. FundingAll three parties acknowledge the province's schools, colleges and universities need more money, and all promise to increase education funding: The Liberals would increase annual spending to $12.79 billion from $11.1 billion over a six-year period. The ADQ would increase it to $12.5 billion over the same period. The PQ doesn't have a precise dollar amount, but its platform includes general promises of investment, expansion and increases—and no mention of cuts. Classroom time The biggest cost for the Liberal education plan is an increase in hours of primary classroom time: It would amount to $470 million in extra spending over six years, and increase the weekly number of hours from 23.5 to 25. The additional time would be devoted to physical education and to English as a second language. According to the Liberals, recent reforms to the primary system resulted in a decrease to the amount of English taught to francophones. The system now calls for 144 hours over four years, compared to the previous quota of 216 hours over three years. And the Liberals play it as an equality issue. By the end of high school, francophones receive a maximum of 720 hours of English instruction; anglophones get nearly 2,000 hours of French instruction. In their platform, the Liberals argue that it's "unacceptable" to hamper a francophone child's ability to communicate in English and that English "must stop being perceived as a threat." The Parti Québécois wants to increase classroom time to 25.5 hours per week, 30 more minutes than the Liberals. While the PQ doesn't outline exact costs for the measure, it is sure to cost more than the Liberal figure. As well, the PQ would spread the extra time between physical education and "non-core" subjects, such as art, music and second-language instruction. The ADQ has made no mention of increased classroom time. Universities Quebec loves its low university tuition levels, something the Liberals and PQ are loath to tamper with. Both parties would maintain the current tuition freeze. The ADQ, however, says the freeze means universities are forced to work around it by "imposing related charges," although those charges are not outlined in its platform. Dumont proposes tying tuition fees to the cost of living. All the parties agree that universities need more money. The Liberals promise to inject $60 million annually, saying the system has been under-funded and can't attract top professors as a result. The Liberals would also embark on a consultation process to determine the level of funding the province's universities need. To some extent, Bernard Landry must agree that his government has been under-funding universities: Although not promised in the PQ platform, Landry has said during the campaign that his party will increase university funding by $200 million a year. The PQ also has a raft of measures to aid students, such as paying off 25 per cent of a student's debt if studies are completed on schedule, and subsidizing food, clothing and lodging to the tune of $21 million. The only extra money the ADQ proposes would come from tuition increases, after the ADQ allowed it to rise with the cost of living. Other Issues:
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