The new Ethics and Religious Culture course postponed for one year
The reform of the Ethics and Religious Culture (ECR) course, promised for the start of the 2022 school year, has been postponed for one year. The Ministry of Education is planning pilot projects spread over two years before implementing the final version of the program in the fall of 2023, in a possible second term of the Coalition d' avenir Québec (CAQ), Le Devoir has learned .
A preliminary version of the new RCT course will be piloted starting next fall in 8 high schools and 12 elementary schools, our sources indicate. This program must include new learning, particularly in citizenship education, which will reduce
the part devoted to teaching religious culture, without eliminating it.
This reformed version of the ECR course is in line with the Legault government's desire to update one of the objectives of the program, created in 2008, to offer religious education from a secular perspective. The course was set up in the wake of the deconfessionalization of schools.
Quebec launched consultations in January 2020 on eight themes with a view to producing the new program (in addition to citizenship education), including sexuality education, ecology, legal education, ethics, digital citizenship, the development of self and interpersonal relationships and the culture of societies. The Minister of Education, Jean-François Roberge, is due to announce in the coming weeks the result of the consultations with a view to renewing the ECR course.
Pilot projects
The two-year pilot projects should lead to the implementation of the revised ECR program in 2023-2024,
several sources familiar with the matter confirm to Le Devoir .
The future of the ECR course provokes heart-wrenching debates about the place of religion in the Quebec school training program. Experts fear that the Legault government, which passed the Law on the Secularism of the State,
is putting aside learning deemed essential in matters of religious culture.
The pilot of the 2021-2022 school year project will evaluate the new version of the course for the 1 st , 3 th and 5 th years of primary school and the first two years of high school, confirm our sources. The second phase of the pilot project, in 2022-2023, should lead to a test in 2 th and 4 th years of primary school and in the last three years of high school.
However, the National Assembly unanimously adopted just two weeks ago, on February 9, a motion asking the Legault government to "respect its intention to offer this renewed course as soon as the school year begins 2022- 2023 ”. The motion also recalled "the importance of civic education for citizenship being at the heart of the new version of this course".
The independent MP Catherine Fournier, who had presented the motion, was delighted that the government would respect its commitment as of the fall of 2022. The opposition parties want the government to act within its term of office, before the elections scheduled for fall 2022.
Jean-François Del Torchio, spokesperson for Minister Jean-François Roberge, told Le Devoir on Sunday that the new ECR program will be offered as promised, since a pilot project will be held during the 2022-2023 school year.
In the school network, this interpretation of the office of the Minister of Education is strongly contested: influential members of the community have been informed for several weeks that the final version of the ECR program will indeed be implemented in the fall. 2023, a year later than what had been announced in January 2020 by Mr. Roberge.
"Difficult to achieve"
Beyond this controversy, the Quebec Association in Ethics and Religious Culture (AQECR) is delighted that the Ministry of Education has postponed the entry into force of the revised program. "You have to take the time to think carefully about the changes proposed," says Marc Chevarie, president of the organization that represents teachers and other experts in ethics and religious culture.
In an opinion on the review of the ECR course dated January 2021 , the Higher Education Council goes further:
“In the opinion of specialists and actors in the field, the timetable for the implementation of the new program
in 2023-2024 seems ambitious and difficult to achieve, ”says the report.
“[The] current context, with the rampant pandemic and the shortage of qualified personnel, adds to the complexity of the implementation of this government priority. The Council anticipates that the effects of the health crisis on the education network, on school staff, on student success and on the dropout rate will last beyond the end of confinement. This context must be taken into account in future decisions. "
The Council recommends “reviewing the content related to religious facts and secular worldviews to better reflect religious and non-religious diversity and to provide a contemporary vision of this reality which has evolved since the implementation of the ECR program in 2008”.
For its part, the AQECR fears that the teaching of religious culture will be marginalized. "It is important here to underline that the aims of the [current] program in no way promote a militant multiculturalism of which we wanted to accuse the teachers of ECR",
specifies the brief of the AQECR on the reform of the program.
“The members of our association consider religious culture to be an inescapable reality that greatly contributes to the two aims of the course, namely the recognition of others and the pursuit of the common good. In a world where more than 80% of humanity has a religious tradition, it becomes imperative to go out to meet others in order to know them better and understand them better. "
A preliminary version of the new RCT course will be piloted starting next fall in 8 high schools and 12 elementary schools, our sources indicate. This program must include new learning, particularly in citizenship education, which will reduce
the part devoted to teaching religious culture, without eliminating it.
This reformed version of the ECR course is in line with the Legault government's desire to update one of the objectives of the program, created in 2008, to offer religious education from a secular perspective. The course was set up in the wake of the deconfessionalization of schools.
Quebec launched consultations in January 2020 on eight themes with a view to producing the new program (in addition to citizenship education), including sexuality education, ecology, legal education, ethics, digital citizenship, the development of self and interpersonal relationships and the culture of societies. The Minister of Education, Jean-François Roberge, is due to announce in the coming weeks the result of the consultations with a view to renewing the ECR course.
Pilot projects
The two-year pilot projects should lead to the implementation of the revised ECR program in 2023-2024,
several sources familiar with the matter confirm to Le Devoir .
The future of the ECR course provokes heart-wrenching debates about the place of religion in the Quebec school training program. Experts fear that the Legault government, which passed the Law on the Secularism of the State,
is putting aside learning deemed essential in matters of religious culture.
The pilot of the 2021-2022 school year project will evaluate the new version of the course for the 1 st , 3 th and 5 th years of primary school and the first two years of high school, confirm our sources. The second phase of the pilot project, in 2022-2023, should lead to a test in 2 th and 4 th years of primary school and in the last three years of high school.
However, the National Assembly unanimously adopted just two weeks ago, on February 9, a motion asking the Legault government to "respect its intention to offer this renewed course as soon as the school year begins 2022- 2023 ”. The motion also recalled "the importance of civic education for citizenship being at the heart of the new version of this course".
The independent MP Catherine Fournier, who had presented the motion, was delighted that the government would respect its commitment as of the fall of 2022. The opposition parties want the government to act within its term of office, before the elections scheduled for fall 2022.
Jean-François Del Torchio, spokesperson for Minister Jean-François Roberge, told Le Devoir on Sunday that the new ECR program will be offered as promised, since a pilot project will be held during the 2022-2023 school year.
In the school network, this interpretation of the office of the Minister of Education is strongly contested: influential members of the community have been informed for several weeks that the final version of the ECR program will indeed be implemented in the fall. 2023, a year later than what had been announced in January 2020 by Mr. Roberge.
"Difficult to achieve"
Beyond this controversy, the Quebec Association in Ethics and Religious Culture (AQECR) is delighted that the Ministry of Education has postponed the entry into force of the revised program. "You have to take the time to think carefully about the changes proposed," says Marc Chevarie, president of the organization that represents teachers and other experts in ethics and religious culture.
In an opinion on the review of the ECR course dated January 2021 , the Higher Education Council goes further:
“In the opinion of specialists and actors in the field, the timetable for the implementation of the new program
in 2023-2024 seems ambitious and difficult to achieve, ”says the report.
“[The] current context, with the rampant pandemic and the shortage of qualified personnel, adds to the complexity of the implementation of this government priority. The Council anticipates that the effects of the health crisis on the education network, on school staff, on student success and on the dropout rate will last beyond the end of confinement. This context must be taken into account in future decisions. "
The Council recommends “reviewing the content related to religious facts and secular worldviews to better reflect religious and non-religious diversity and to provide a contemporary vision of this reality which has evolved since the implementation of the ECR program in 2008”.
For its part, the AQECR fears that the teaching of religious culture will be marginalized. "It is important here to underline that the aims of the [current] program in no way promote a militant multiculturalism of which we wanted to accuse the teachers of ECR",
specifies the brief of the AQECR on the reform of the program.
“The members of our association consider religious culture to be an inescapable reality that greatly contributes to the two aims of the course, namely the recognition of others and the pursuit of the common good. In a world where more than 80% of humanity has a religious tradition, it becomes imperative to go out to meet others in order to know them better and understand them better. "
LEDEVOIR
Marco Fortier
Education
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Education
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