Quebec still missing 1,331 teachers

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QUEBEC — Nearly 500 full-time or part-time teachers have joined the ranks of various school service centres in Quebec over the past week, according to the most recent data released on Tuesday, but 1,331 are still missing.

In a statement published Tuesday evening, the Ministry of Education said 217 regular full-time positions and 1,114 other part-time positions were still to be filled, compared to 334 full-time positions and 1,495 other part-time positions which were unfilled a week ago.

In presenting its data, the ministry made a point of noting that “a position to be filled does not systematically mean that a teacher is missing in a class.”

“Until the position is filled by an incumbent, the school service centre or the school board provides solutions to maintain the service,” such as replacement or the addition of tasks to teachers.”

A few days before the start of the new school year, the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, appealed to retired teachers and to people who might be interested in trying the teaching experience, when he had to find candidates to fill more than 8,500 teaching positions.

Asked last week whether there was indeed an adult in each class at the start of the school year, Drainville replied that if there was not somewhere, he would know.

“I haven’t had any reports so far of a class where there wasn’t at least one adult. I didn’t have a report on that. I imagine that I would have had if that had been the case,” he said.

In a statement on Tuesday, Drainville tipped his hat to the various teams under his command.

“At the risk of repeating myself, I again and again want to warmly welcome and thank the staff of the 72 school service centres and school boards as well as all the school teams who worked hard last week for the start of the new school year. Your efforts have made it possible to significantly reduce the number of vacancies. We continue to work on finding solutions to overcome this shortage,” he wrote.