As school begins, where are Quebec’s teachers?

In today’s Big Story Podcast, Quebec is facing a severe teachers shortage, with more than 8,000 educators missing from classrooms. In the meantime, the government has tried to get creative by lowering standards required to preside over a classroom. Sometimes to as low as “an adult.”

Toula Drimonis is a writer and columnist, and she wrote this piece for CultMTL.com . She said the reason for the shortage is the result of many different things, but it primarily comes down to funding.

“You can’t have successive governments constantly underfunding education year after year after year, which means that you’re automatically, inevitably, deteriorating the working conditions for teachers without there being severe consequences,” said Drimonis.

As shortages in general become more pronounced every year, what’s happening to classrooms left without a teacher, or children learning from an under-qualified adult?

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You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.