Failures are increasing

The return of ministry exams in June gave secondary students a tough time, and many of them enrolled in summer courses and supplementary exams at several school service centers. At the provincial level, the number of French exam resits is increasing.

The result set for the ministerial examination held in June is not yet available from the Ministry of Education. However, spokeswoman Esther Sounard notes that there has been a “slight increase” in retakes for French as a language of instruction and French as a second language.

For all subjects, the number of students registered for re-exams at the end of July was “comparable to previous years”, Ms.^me Chouinard.

However, the picture varies according to the data obtained, according to the school service centres Newspaper with about fifteen of them. In most of the service centers, enrollments for summer courses and supplementary exams have increased.

Epidemic

This is particularly the case at Polyvalente La Samare in Plessisville. “The failure rate is higher than previous years. We were able to see the difference before and after the pandemic,” says its director, Daniel Belive.

After a gap of two years, the ministerial exams are back this year.

“I think teenagers have been hit hard by the epidemic. They don’t have maturity and they don’t have motivation because they are afraid of the future. It’s hard for them to put themselves forward because they know it won’t happen,” said M.^me hope

Registration of records

Mont Sainte-Anne High School, located in Beaupre, near Quebec City, also had a high failure rate this year.

“At the service center level, we’ve never had so many enrollments for summer courses,” says its director, Luke Paquette. “The more we go back to normalcy, the more we realize that there are young people who lack knowledge. And the ministry’s review, it’s more honest, let’s say,” he drops.

Environment also weighs in the balance, says deputy director Jean-Francois Lanove. “In the last couple of years, teachers have diversified their assessment methods and students have done less ‘classic assessments,'” he says.

“Were the students under too much stress? May be. Were they less perforated Than before ministry exams? May be. But it shouldn’t be lack of talent,” he relents.

Ministerial exam results were sent out with a week’s delay this summer, as well as limiting ministerial scores, which resulted in failing students who had achieved good results throughout the school year.

Some were unable to enroll in summer courses or supplementary exams because they learned too late that they had failed, Mr. Lanov adds.

Request for Revised and Revised Bulletin

As the new academic year begins, school principals have called for a deeper review of student evaluations and come up with a revised and revised report card.

For the past two years, the pandemic has led to changes in student assessment that will be in effect again this year.

The number of report cards has been reduced from three to two per school year, while ministry exams at the end of secondary school count for 20% of a student’s final grade instead of 50%.

The Minister of Education, Jean-François Roberge, has already announced that he will consult with the actors of the school network on this matter this year, to determine whether these changes should be here.

However, school principals have asked for nothing less than a “State General” to review the situation.

says Nicolas Provost, president of the Federation of Quebec School Directors (FQDE), which represents most school principals in the province.

“We want to deal with the underlying issues based on the overall assessment,” he says.

The Encrypted Bulletin asked the question

According to FQDE, the number of reports, form and purpose of assessments and communications to parents should be subject to discussion.

“Very little information is transmitted between networks and parents, which is a huge weakness,” affirms its president.

Even the presence of numbers on the report card, especially at the initial stage, should be questioned, so the report card is not a “performance tool”, said Mr. Prevost notes.

For FQDE, student evaluation is linked to academic success because of the stress and anxiety it causes students.

In other Canadian provinces, numbered grades have long since disappeared from the report card. In British Columbia, digital portfolios without letters or percentages have replaced traditional bulletins over the years.

Over the years, many players in the education network have called for questioning exams, especially at the primary level, where many teachers consider them too numerous.

At the Federation of Parental Groups of Quebec, we accept the recommendations of the Higher Education Council, which proposed a top-to-bottom review in 2019 to make the bulletin a learning tool, not specifically an assessment. By vanishing the group mean.

Examples

Summer Courses*

First Seigneuries School Service Center (Quebec):

• Summer 2022: 153
• Summer 2021: 129

Grandes-Seigneuries School Service Center (Montérégie):

• Summer 2022: 266 students
• Summer 2021: 171 students

Beaux-Etchem’s School Service Center**:

• Summer 2022: 117 students
• Summer 2021: 74 students

* 4 subjects only^e and 5^e Covered by secondary ministerial tests

**This data applies only to students of CSS Beauce-Etchemin, which also offers online courses to other students who do not come from this service center.