Breaking News

A hard lesson: thousands of “unqualified” teachers in Quebec schools

Monique Henry has taught English in Quebec for more than two decades without a formal degree. As an “unqualified” teacher, she had to learn her craft the hard way.

When she started teaching in 2006, she was plagued by unruly students. Because she never completed a college education program, she did not learn classroom management techniques.

“You do it quickly and you learn over time,” says Henry, 46, who teaches English as a second language at a high school in St. Jerome, Que., on a one-year contract. “There’s no one to help you. … If you have a problem, you’re kind of on your own.

Henry is one of a growing number of unqualified teachers in Quebec schools, whom education experts say the provincial government is increasingly relying on as teaching shortages worsen, compromising the quality of education and overburdening school staff.

Story continues below ad

Unqualified teachers may have college degrees in non-teaching subjects, or no post-secondary education at all. They come from a wide range of backgrounds but have one thing in common: they are not officially certified by the county government to teach.

Traditionally, teachers in Quebec become certified after completing a bachelor’s degree in education and obtaining a teaching license. In response to the labor shortage in the education system, the province has lowered the bar for obtaining this designation, but there is little incentive for unqualified teachers to become certified because the demand for them is so great that school boards are hiring regardless of the candidate’s educational background.


In December, Quebec’s education department said there were 9,184 unqualified teachers in the province’s public schools, up from 8,871 in May 2024 and 6,654 in May 2023. But that number only includes teachers on long-term contracts and excludes substitutes, who make up teachers. The bulk of teachers are unqualified.

For news affecting Canada and around the world, sign up to get breaking news alerts delivered to you right as they happen.

Get breaking national news

For news affecting Canada and around the world, sign up to get breaking news alerts delivered to you right as they happen.

In 2023, Quebec’s Auditor General issued a report revealing that in the 2020-2021 school year there were more than 30,000 unqualified teachers in the education network, most of them substitutes, a number representing more than a quarter of all teachers.

Nicolas Prevost, president of the Federation of School Administrators of Quebec, said he expects the number of unqualified teachers to rise significantly in the next few years due to declining enrollment in university education programs and the difficulty the provincial government faces in replacing retiring teachers.

Story continues below ad

Genevieve Sirois, professor of school administration at TÉLUQ University, agrees. “We are relying heavily on unqualified teachers right now.” In 2015, Quebec had about 15,000 unqualified teachers; She said that this number had doubled in less than a decade.

Although unqualified teachers vary widely in professional experience, Sirois said those without the proper training can hinder student learning.

“Just imagine a first grader who needs to learn how to read and write and ends up with a teacher who does not know the principles of pedagogy, reading, and writing…. When it comes to students who are struggling, we can see the potential consequences immediately.

In Montreal, unqualified teacher Mathieu Theoret, 47, previously held two long-term contracts but would prefer to be a substitute. He said that unqualified teachers often report to duty after the start of the school year without having time to prepare. This means that in many cases they rely on classwork and information provided by their colleagues.

Some teachers at Theorêt’s Montreal high school helped him last school year but were too busy — or exhausted — to help this year. He doesn’t blame them. “They took a lot of time from their work to help me and other teachers before me who were exhausted,” he said, admitting that he sometimes feels like a burden.

The pressure is not limited to his fellow teachers but also to secretaries and other support staff. “Everyone has to pick up some kind of regulatory slack,” he said.

Story continues below ad

Meanwhile, new university programs have been created at the province’s request to speed up the certification process for teachers, Sirois said, adding that the government is granting temporary teaching licenses to students enrolled in teacher training programs.

But there is little incentive for unqualified teachers to obtain certificates, says Valérie Harnois, a doctoral student at Laval University who studies how the province responds to teacher shortages. Teachers are in such high demand, she said, that unqualified people get regular work and earn the same pay as teachers with degrees and licenses.

“There is little benefit financially in being legally qualified,” Harnois said.

The Education Ministry said in a statement that Quebec is spending millions of dollars to recruit and retain workers: $39.6 million to make part-time jobs more attractive, $37 million to keep retired teachers in their jobs, and another $37 million to support teaching staff.

Henry is on her way to finally getting her teaching license. A few years ago, she temporarily left teaching to take a job as a 911 dispatcher, but was drawn back into the classroom by a new distance-learning bachelor’s degree program at the University of Sherbrooke. “I always wanted to go into teaching,” she said.

& Edition 2025 The Canadian Press

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button

Adblock Detected

Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker