Quebec's Higher Education Nightmare

Now if you were awaiting a blog piece condemning Quebec students for their self-destructive boycott of cegep and university classes, you probably won't be expecting this.

The reality is that the government as well as the universities and cegeps are as much to blame for the ongoing fiasco, a crisis in higher education so deep that it plumbs the depths of despair.
When I refer to this ongoing fiasco, I'm not talking about the class boycott by students which is an irrelevant distraction to the deep malaise in higher education in Quebec.

Whether students return to class or not is actually quite beside the point, because for the majority of the students boycotting, the education that they are receiving is so utterly substandard that it makes one wonder if it is worth the effort in the first place.
The old adage that 'you get what you pay for' couldn't be truer in the case of higher education in Quebec, particularly on the French side, where students don't pay a heckuva lot for an education that is commensurately not worth much either.

The ongoing tuition battle between the students and the government is a pathetic sideshow, replete with comic elements worthy of a Monty Python skit.

While student may indulge themselves by calling a boycott a 'strike,' it is incomprehensible that the media does so as well, but hey, this is Quebec.

The students realize that as far as the general public is concerned, they can stay out of classes forever
and so have resorted to the tactics of spoilt children who throw destructive tantrums until their parents cave in.
Curiously, that strategy just might work, as I said, this is Quebec.

The students appear not to care whether they lose a semester or two of studies, negating any financial gain that they may wrest from the government. Cries of altruistic motivations and mock concern for the next generation of students is hard to believe when destroying public property is the means to the end.

As Alice in Wonderland said, the situation has become 'curiouser and curiouser.'

It's easy to understand why losing a year of studies is of no import to the three leaders of the student associations involved in the boycott.
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the leader of the most radical of the three, ASSE,  is a part time student taking a decidedly light course load. He will likely spend as many years in college as will the cast of GLEE in high school.
The leader of FECQ, Léo Bureau-Blouin, is not a full-time student, nor even a part-time student, but rather someone taking correspondence courses (yup, I kid you not) while the leader of the third student association FEUQ,  Martine Desjardins, is supposedly off writing a dissertation in the weighty matters of education. At thirty years old, I hope we will not still be paying for her education when she becomes a grandmother.
Ironically, all three are graduates of private high schools, where the tuition fees paid by their parents are higher than what is being asked of the university students presently on strike.

Now there are those who pan the government for refusing to negotiate with CLASSE, because as the government claims, it is too radical and because the association will not disavow itself from violent protest.
For those on the fence and unsure if this is true, let me offer this pearl from the association's own website in promotion May Day,

"To the anti-capitalists, anarchists, communists, insurgents and revolutionaries. 
This is a call for an expression of righteous rage! THIS IS A CALL FOR A  SOCIAL STRIKE May 1st ! 
We call for a general strike for May 1 and we call for an indefinite general social strike, because we do not want to be the oil that drives the gears of capitalism! We will be the iron bar that will derail everything!

As the radicals sink their clutches into the 'strike' movement, Premier Charest would be well advised to set a deadline for students to return and then shut down the classes that are subject to a continued boycott.
There is just no compromise to be had with the likes of recalcitrant hardliners like Emma Strople, a part-time student at McGill and full-time anarchist, according to her friends.
After her third arrest for participation in a violent demonstration, she was jailed for breaking previous bail conditions.
So fed up was the judge, that he actually banned her from Quebec, sending her to Ontario with the caveat not to return, until her trial! Link

While student leaders say that the 'strike' was a result of a democratically held vote, it bears a closer look.
In Quebec, all college and university students are forced to join one of the three student associations and membership fees are forcibly collected by the university. Most students are apathetic and have no interest in the student associations, nor do they participate in its activities, social or political.

When the associations say that they have a majority of support for the strike, what they mean is that they have a majority of the precious few who actually vote.
Over at l'Université du Québec en Outaouais, the students voted 397 to 244 in favour of the strike, but with 6,000 students registered at the school, it means that only 10% voted and that only 6.5% actually supported for a strike. This same scenario is repeated across the province.
In cegep St. Jerome, only 510 or about 12% of the 4,000 students voted for the strike, but it was enough to create a majority of those who participated.
At one faculty at the University of Laval, consisting of almost 12,000 students, only 442 participated in a vote to continue the strike, with 243 for and 199 against. That works out to 2.5% of the students voting to continue the strike.
It is these types of mandates that the student leaders are leaning heavily on.

If you think that the students forced out of classes by a militant minority are happy about the situation, go over to a FACEBOOK page where 9,000 students (and counting) have added their name so far in calling for the firing of Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, chief spokesperson of the most radical of the three associations, the CLASSE.

Some of the students, furious about being locked out of classes, have gone to court seeking an injunction forcing the universities and cegeps to reopen. So far, 25 of the 26 demands were granted, much to the chagrin of 'striking' students who are using all manner of intimidation to close the schools.

But let us put the boycott aside, most of those who might actually lose a year are the students studying nothing much of value, in courses taught by teachers equally dismal academically and intellectually and where student are preordained to pass their courses with decent marks regardless of the effort they put in or results of their exams.
Among those on strike, you won't find those studying engineering, the law, medicine or any of the disciplines that actually mean something.
It is of course, those studying the humanities, the arts, the social studies and education that are the boycotters, those who have plenty of time to spend in school because they are generally going nowhere and are in no rush to get there.

The degrees they receive will earn them the right to a McJob and not much else.
There's not much call for French Art History graduates who at any rate, couldn't tell you the difference between a Monet and a Manet.
I wouldn't be in a rush to graduate either, if the only job I was qualified for, was slinging coffee in Tim Horton's.

The real crisis in French higher education is based on the fact that  fewer francophones are actually interested in a university education.
Anglos and ethnics earn 50% more university degrees than francophone Quebecers.

This fact has been a source of deep humiliation to the  political class and so in an effort to catch up to the Anglos, standards have been pushed so low that even those who haven't completed high school are given the opportunity to attend cegep with the promise of a degree, if only they stick it out.
Unfortunately for over half of these non-achievers, they drop out anyways.

"The Department of Education is obsessed with the dropout rate. The problem is serious, boys are struggling and quit school at an alarming rate and the department is so desperate to curb the dropout rate, to the extent that they are shooting themselves in the foot. Lower the requirements, say the bureaucrats, and the failure rate will also fall. The problem is that the level of quality, also falls.
As of this September, the criteria for admission to cegep will be lowered. Students may start college without graduating high school" Link

Entry standards are lowered across the board, not only in cegep but in universities as well, because in the French system, there is a huge overcapacity and cegeps and universities are funded in relation to the numbers of students they teach and graduate.
So desperate are the schools to fill places, that foreign French students have been given the opportunity to study in Quebec, paying the same tuition rates as locals, including free medicare coverage.
Hilariously, many of these students take up the Quebec government offer, but enroll in English language schools like Concordia and McGill.
Ironically, foreign students who attend McGill, who are not French and thus not eligible for this  program must pay about three times as much tuition as those who benefit from the 'French first' program. All this in an English university! Did  I mention 'Alice in Wonderland?"

At any rate, it's understandable that the desperation to attract students leads some schools to take extraordinary means to attract warm bodies.

"Discounted Diplomas, inflated marks, useless courses,  finances in the red and an unhealthy competition between institutions that are competing for students. "

"Cegeps are weak because high schools are weak and universities are weak because cegeps are weak. Weak + weak will never result in something strong. The tragedy is that the Department of Education does not seem to understand this."

"Over the years, universities have turned into big cegeps and cegeps into high schools."   Link

 The UQAM, the University of Quebec at Montreal, with its 60,000 full and part time students is the best example of this mediocrity. It is the glaring example of everything that is wrong in the post secondary francophone educational system in Quebec.

Academically UQAM, may very well be the worst  publicly funded university in Canada with standards so low, that it is in effect a glorified cegep.

Substandard and lazy students, crapola separatist/unionist teachers and incompetent administrators, the school is best known for turning out firebrand socialists and separatists and not much else.

Quebec's largest university doesn't have a medical school, a law school or an engineering department. It doesn't have a football team, but it does have a cheerleading squad.
Let's just say that the school's forté is underwater basket-weaving courses and one wouldn't be overstating facts in describing UQAM as Quebec's very own version of Greendale Community College.

"At UQAM, in the Department of Communications, even before the first examination, even before the first assignment, students already know how it will end: with a group mean mark that "should normally be between 83% and 89%"
In addition, at UQAM, students are asked to vote to approve the lesson plan. They always refuse any idea of holding 'tests' and demand that they be judged on teamwork."

After turning out hundreds of thousands of graduates, there is hardly a recognizable name among the alumni, except perhaps Pierre-Karl Péladeau who graduated not in business, but a UQAM specialty....philosophy.

That being said, one of the few things that the school does do well, is to teach students that Canada is an evil colonialist empire and that Quebec is an innocent victim of Anglo imperialism, exploited by rapacious Ontarians and Albertans, determined to feast on the blood of innocent and defenseless Quebecois.

When I stated that the students and faculty of UQAM is substandard, it is nothing compared to the incompetents who run the school.
Who can forget the 500 million dollar fiasco whereby UQAM administrators so botched an expansion project that the government had to shutter the whole thing after it went over budget to the tune of several hundred million dollars.  Read "Hiding the shame that is Îlot Voyageur"

The unfinished building is so embarrassing that the government paid $60,000 to wrap it in a shroud so that the public would not be reminded of the economic catastrophe.

Inside the bus terminal, over which the project was to be built, one of the sad reminders of the failure, is this escalator leading to a blank wall, as the second floor has been shuttered.

The cost over-runs were so severe that the police actually investigated the rector of the school, Roch Denis with a view towards charging him criminally.
When those charges were not forthcoming, the school and the rector parted ways, but not before  Mr. Denis was awarded a big, fat severance cheque, of close to $200,000.

Before I receive the requisite hate mail over my supposed francophone bashing, let me say that the situation over at Concordia is not much better, both academically and financially.

 "Jordan Fainstat, a political science student at Concordia University, tells of his experience in one of his courses. "If half the class fails a test, the teacher makes an adjustment where for example, the tests value will be reduced to only 15% of the final grade." Link{Fr}

Concordia does have some quality programs, as does the University of Montreal, the University of Sherbrooke and Laval University in Quebec City.
The problem is that all these schools maintain, in addition to their quality faculties, some that are as pitiful as those in UQAM.

As for the strike, it is no big deal, if I was a UQAM student or enrolled in one of the dead-end diploma courses, I'd go on strike too.
Finishing school with a worthless degree is something to be put off at all costs. It's no wonder that students in these disciplines want to strike so that they can extend their years in college, after all, the alternative is not so attractive.

"Un p'tit chausson aux pommes avec ça, Monsieur?"