The Royal Commission of Inquiry on Education in the Province of Quebec, better known as the Parent Commission, was a commission established in 1961 by the newly elected Lesage government to investigate the education system in Quebec up until the 1960s. It was chaired by MgrAlphonse-Marie Parent, and consisted of 8 members. The resulting report, the Parent Report, published between 1963-66 in 5 volumes, consisted of nearly 1500 pages, and proposed some 500 recommendations[1] that led to following major reforms of the then church-dominated education system:
The Parent Commission, as a product of the Quiet Revolution, helped to create one public, unified, comprehensive, democratic, education system accessible to everyone at all levels, which in turn helped to reduce disparities between men and women, urban and rural, English and French populations.
From July 1960, the Liberal government led by Jean Lesage who believed that 'an education system corresponding to our needs and open to all, rich or poor, urban or rural dwellers, is vital to our economic progress and the gradual increase in our standard of living',[2] had adopted new legislation in favour of an education reform which were collectively known under the title 'Grand Charte de l’éducation'.[3] It was a series of measures aiming at overcoming century-old elitism and at promoting universal accessibility to all levels of education through a reformed network of institutions and the establishment of financial assistance programs. Among these measures, the Parent Commission was created on April 21, 1961.
Before the pedagogical reform initiated by the Parent Commission in the 60's, the situations in Quebec's educational environments was a 'real hodgepodge': schools were designated as either Catholic or Protestant, administered by more than 1,500 school boards divided by confessionality, with each school board in charge of its own curriculum, textbooks, and recognition of diplomas.[4]
The under-schooling of French Canadians was apparent: compared with 36% of English-speaking students, only 13% of French-speaking students complete Grade 11. Moreover, 63% of French-speaking students stopped at Grade 7. At higher education, the discrepancy was apparent from 1960 university enrolment statistics showing that only 3% of French Canadians aged between 20-24 attended university, whereas enrolment at the 3 English universities in Quebec represented 11% of English-speakers in the same age group.[4]
By the time the Commission was formed, due to post-war prosperity in terms of both population and economic growth, baby boomers were reaching adolescence, and the province was in dire need of adequate training programs to respond to the increasing demand for specialised labour that met an industrialised society's need.
In the early 1960s, changes were also in the mind of practitioners of Catholic faith, which were brought out by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) that aimed at integrating modern human experience with church principles.[5]
Members
The Commissioners were selected to represent various sectors of Quebec society: male-female, English-French, Catholic-Protestant, academic-business, private-public, and lay-religious. Among the 8 members, there were:
7 representing private institutions (universities and colleges were private schools), with the Irish person being the only person representing public sector
One of the two women was a sister. 6 out of 8 members were trained in the classical colleges, which were mostly boys' institutions (among some 100 classical colleges, only about 20 admitted girls[4]).[6] The members were:
Paul Larocque, lawyer and adjoint secretary of Aluminium Ltd;[7]
David Munroe, director of McGill's Institute of Education at Macdonald College; in 1964 he replaced Mr. Filion as the vice-president of the Commission[8]
Sister Marie-Laurent de Rome (Ghislaine Roquet), professor of philosophy and religion at Basile-Moreau College;
There were also an adjoint member Arthur Tremblay (without the right to vote), and 3 other associated staff members: C. Wynne Dickson, Michel Giroux, and Louis-Philippe Audet.
Development
During the course of several years, the Commissioners received 349 memoirs, interviewed 125 educators, visited some 50 schools in Quebec, Canada, United States, and Europe.[9]
The first observation the Commissioners made was the low level of formal schooling among French Canadians, especially girls, compared with English Canadians: most of them didn't go further than primary school. The archaic education system controlled by the Church was made so that only a small minority of elites (mostly male) could afford to complete the 8 years training in classical colleges with a dropout rate of 70%.[6] All schools were private, and principally Catholic.
In order to make education more accessible to the entire population, the Commissioners, knowing that the education system in Quebec would need to pass from private to public, recommended the creation of a Ministry of Education that would have sufficient regulatory power to ensure the financing of the schools, from primary to university.
That education was to be placed under secular authority was a radical heresy at the time when all the powers were seized by the 22 bishops of Quebec. The English Protestants were equally shocked by the proposition that they would be placed under the same ministry, because prior to 1960's, the Protestants -- including McGill University -- had enjoyed total autonomy within the education system of Quebec. Lesage government needed to spend an year negotiating with both Catholics and Protestants for them to finally agree to the creation of this ministry, under the responsibility of Paul Gérin-Lajoie, the first Minister of Education.[6]
The second issue the Commissioners noticed was that at secondary level, several types of institutions co-existed in parallel: studies at classical colleges led up to university; training at normal schools paved way for a career in teaching; plus liberal arts colleges and other vocational schools and technical institutes under the authority of several ministries that provided training of uneven quality and incompatible diplomas. Also, after having gathered various opinions of specialists in higher education, the Commissioners learned that passage from high school to university was difficult. University has always had trouble imparting specialised knowledge to freshman students coming out of high schools who were ill-equipped with introductory program-specific knowledge. University professors and lecturers were not trained to give generalised courses.[6]
Hence, inspired by California's junior colleges[6] (which in 1967 were renamed community colleges and unified into the California Community Colleges system), the Commissioners suggested inserting an intermediate level, later known as collège d’enseignement général et professionnel or CEGEPs, to fill the gap between high school and undergraduate degree or between high school and workplace. These colleges were to be created from existing classical colleges and vocational schools. The new structure would assume the role of instructing general courses in language and humanities, introductory courses in various fields of study as preparation for undergraduate studies, and to provide industry with the skilled labour required in a modern society.
Volume I published in 1963 contained the radical proposal of creating a Ministry of Education.
Volume II and III unrevealed in 1964 presented a set of proposals for improving the structure of education in the province, including recommendation of developing a network of public kindergartens, mixed and tuition-free, aimed at children of 4-year old.
Volume IV and V made public in 1966 dealt with cultural and religious diversity, educational finance, and school administration at the local level.
The Commissioners highlighted in the report problems existing within the education system in Quebec and recommended numerous significant reforms to solve them, which led to the secularisation, democratisation and the modernisation of the then church-dominated education system. Indignant at the beginning, the Catholic Church conceded to the secularisation of the education system on the condition that school boards remained confessional (the confessional division was only abolished in the late 90's).
Upon the report's recommendation, CEGEPs were created in 1967. Its 2-year pre-university program bridges between high school and university, while its 3-year vocational programs lead directly to the job market. 12 CEGEPs opened their doors in September 1967, 11 others the next year.[11] Financial assistance was introduced in the form of student loans and bursaries.
Primary schools and vocational training were reformed. School curriculums were standardized. Aspiring teachers are now provided with adequate training program at the university level. Before the reform, Quebec primary and secondary school teachers ranked significantly lower than those in other jurisdictions of North America. 1961–62 figures indicate that 90% of Catholic (French-speaking) teachers and 65% of Protestant (English-speaking) teachers had less than or equal to 13 years of schooling. See Higher education in Quebec.
After a state-controlled education system that values the mass population was in place, to ensure that everyone has equal opportunity to benefit from it, the Report proposes extending the tuition-free policy from primary school to university in the long run. Addressing the deep-rooted inequalities in our society, the Commission wanted to ensure that the economic obstacles to access to higher education are reduced to a minimum. Freezing tuition fee is a temporary measure that is put in place before the eventual elimination of this fee. In the spirit of the report, society at large should be responsible for the cost of educating the young.
Other Legacy
School Attendance of Youths Aged 15 to 17 in 1960 and 1970[2]
Age
1970
1960
15 years old
94%
75%
16 years old
84%
51%
17 years old
63%
31%
'Qui s’instruit s’enrichit' (education for a brighter future), exclaimed the reformers. Quebec society now believed in the power of education. It has recognised education as a high social priority, and has accepted since the publication of the Parent Report that education budgets be increased to comprise a large percentage of public expenditures. As a result, school attendance at the high school level increased significantly from 1960 to 1970.[2]
The educational reform advocated by the Parent Report also carries out an unexpected outcome: the founding of University of Quebec network, which was not implemented according to the initial proposals of the Commission. After the establishment of CEGEPs, an increasing number of students chose to pursue undergraduate studies, adding pressure on Quebec's existing 6 universities in urban areas. Hence, modelled after state university system in New York State and California, University of Quebec with its 4 initial campuses in Montreal, Trois Rivières, Rimouski and Chicoutimi, and later in Hull, and Rouyn-Noranda, was created to guarantee access to comprehensive university education for the regions. These universities offer programs corresponding to the characteristics of the regions: oceanography in Rimouski, aluminium in Chicoutimi, forestry in Trois-Rivières, and mining in Rouyn-Noranda, etc.[1]
1 2 3 4 5 Rocher, Guy (2019). "Verbatim de la conférence de Guy Rocher au Congrès de la Fédération des cégeps 26 octobre 2017". Après 50 ans: L'évolution des cégeps inspirée des réflexions de Guy Rocher (in French). Montreal: Association des cadres des collèges du Québec.
↑ Savard, Denis (2017). "La formation au collégial: une spécificité qui se décline en qualité, richesse et originalité. Improvisés, les cégeps?". In ACCQ Association des cadres des collèges du Québec (ed.). Le réseau des cégep: trajectoires de réussites. Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval. pp.9–10.
Education in Quebec is governed by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. It was administered at the local level by publicly elected French and English school boards, changed in 2020 to school service centres. Teachers are represented by province-wide unions that negotiate province-wide working conditions with local boards and the provincial government of Quebec.
A CEGEP is a publicly funded college providing general, professional, academic or a mix of programs; they are exclusive to the province of Quebec's education system. A loanword from French, it originates from the French acronym for collège d'enseignement général et professionnel, sometimes known in English as a "General and Professional College"—it is now considered a word in itself.
Jean Lesage was a Canadian lawyer and politician from Quebec. He served as the 19th premier of Quebec from July 5, 1960, to June 16, 1966. Alongside Georges-Émile Lapalme, René Lévesque and others, he is often viewed as the father of the Quiet Revolution. He is the namesake of the Québec City Jean Lesage International Airport, the main sections of Quebec's longest Autoroute highway Autoroute 20, and the provincial electoral district within Quebec City named Jean-Lesage.
The Quiet Revolution refers to a significant period of socio-political and socio-cultural transformation in French Canada, particularly in Quebec, following the election of 1960. This period was marked by the secularization of the government, the establishment of a state-administered welfare state known as the état-providence, a shift in political alignment toward federalist and sovereigntist factions, and the eventual election of a pro-sovereignty provincial government in the 1976 election. While the Quiet Revolution is often associated with the efforts of the Liberal Party of Quebec's government led by Jean Lesage and, to some extent, Robert Bourassa, its profound impact has influenced the policies of most provincial governments since the early 1960s.
Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu is a city in eastern Montérégie in the Canadian province of Quebec, about 40 kilometres (25 mi) southeast of Montreal, located roughly halfway between Montreal and the Canada–United States border with the state of Vermont. It is situated on both the west and east banks of the Richelieu River at the northernmost navigable point of Lake Champlain. As of December 2019, the population of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu was 98,036.
The politics of Quebec are centred on a provincial government resembling that of the other Canadian provinces, namely a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. The capital of Quebec is Quebec City, where the Lieutenant Governor, Premier, the legislature, and cabinet reside.
The Commission of Inquiry on the Situation of the French Language and Linguistic Rights in Quebec was established under the Union Nationale government of Jean-Jacques Bertrand on December 9, 1968.
Alphonse-Marie Parent was a Canadian priest, educator and academic administrator. He is best known for having given his name to the Parent Report on the reform of Quebec's education system.
Cégep de l'Outaouais is the biggest public college (CEGEP) in the Outaouais region. It is located in the city of Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. In 2002, about 75% of the region's high school graduates had been admitted to the institution. As of 2012 there are over 5,000 students attending the college.
The English Montreal School Board is one of five public school boards and one of two English-language school boards on the island of Montreal in Quebec, Canada. Its territory consists of 14 of Montreal's 19 boroughs as well as the municipalities of Côte-Saint-Luc, Hampstead, Montréal-Est, Montréal-Ouest, Mont-Royal and Westmount.
Cégep de la Gaspésie et des Îles is a bilingual college of general and vocational education, with an English section, in Gaspé, Quebec, Canada. The CEGEP is affiliated with the ACCC, and CCAA.
Cégep Édouard-Montpetit is a public Francophone college in Longueuil, Quebec, Canada. Approximately 7,300 students are enrolled in the 2 campuses, the main one located in Longueuil and the École nationale d'aérotechnique in St-Hubert campuses. It is affiliated with the ACCC, and CCAA.
With access to six universities and twelve junior colleges in an 8 kilometre (5 mi) radius, Montreal, Quebec (Canada) has the highest proportion of post-secondary students of all major cities in North America. This represents roughly 248,000 post-secondary students, one of the largest numbers in the world.
Champlain Regional College, St. Lawrence Campus is a campus belonging to Champlain Regional College. The campus is located in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, and is the only English-language Cégep to serve the region.
The CEGEP of Saint-Jérôme is a post-secondary education school in the Laurentides region of province of Quebec, Canada. There are three campuses affiliated to the CSTJ, the main one is located at Saint-Jérôme; the two others are in Mont-Tremblant and Mont-Laurier.
Higher education in Quebec differs from the education system of other provinces in Canada. Instead of entering university or college directly from high school, students in Quebec leave secondary school after Grade 11, and enter post-secondary studies at the college level, as a prerequisite to university. Although both public colleges (CEGEPs) and private colleges exist, both are colloquially termed CEGEPs. This level of post-secondary education allows students to choose either a vocational path or a more academic path.
The Montreal Catholic School Commission was a Roman Catholic school district in Montreal, Quebec, Canada which operated both French-language and English-language schools. It was the largest school board in Quebec, and was created on June 9, 1846, at the same time as a Protestant school commission, which became the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal. When Quebec's religious "confessional" school boards were replaced by linguistic ones in 1998, the French-language schools and the board's headquarters were turned over to the Commission scolaire de Montréal and its English-language schools to the English Montreal School Board. In 1847, the board had 377 pupils. By 1917, this number increased to 75,000 students. The first kindergarten was established in 1914. An alliance of Catholic teachers was founded in 1919. Primary education is established during the 1920s. During the 1930s, the MCSC began to distribute milk to students and the first school for the disabled opened.
The Cégep de Sherbrooke, formerly known as the Collège de Sherbrooke (1968-2005), is a public college located in the city of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. It was founded in 1968 during the aftermath of the Parent Commission, originally encompassing campuses in the towns of Sherbrooke, Thetford Mines and Granby. Initially occupying two campuses on each side of the city, the college was relocated entirely to its current location in 1975. In the following years, the school oversaw an expansion in its number of buildings on and outside of its campus, consisting today of 7 on-campus buildings, a location in Val-des-Sources which offers certain basic classes and the CRIFA, a partnered establishment that specializes in agricultural education, located in the nearby town of Coaticook.
The Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ) was a Canadian student union founded in February 2001 in Sherbrooke, Quebec, which contained about 56,000 CEGEP and university-level students in 34 member student unions throughout Quebec. The ASSÉ positioned itself distinctly from the other province-wide student unions, the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ), the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ) and the Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ), namely rejecting hierarchical leadership structures in favor of autonomous and horizontal approaches.
Classical colleges were a type of school in Quebec. Since its inception in the 17th century, up until the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, classical college with its eight years of training in classics was the necessary pathway for Quebec's social elites to attain university and other professions. Their studies at the classical colleges would lead to the baccalauréat ès arts.
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