User:Ilesk/Education in Quebec

Abolishment of the School Boards
On February 8th, 2020 at 3:21am, Bill 40 was passed to get rid of the 69 school boards that have been running for the past 175 years. This included 60 French school boards and nine English school boards. Bill 40 did not affect Quebec's three Indigenous school boards. The political party, Coalition Avenir Québec, passed Bill 40, although there was many oppositions from other political parties, as well as teacher unions, parents groups, etc. With the elimination of the school boards, it has turned into what is known as service centres. The abolishing of school boards is said to save the government more than $10 million. Quebec has tried to take power away from school boards by limiting their responsibilities. Their reason for this is to try to improve the quality of education in Quebec. French service centers are now to be run with five staff members, five parents and five members of the community. On the other hand, English school board commissioners remain on the job until November 1st 2020 but they will then involve four staff members, four community representatives and between eight and seventeen parents.

The English school boards of Quebec are trying to invoke Article 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom, which is the official language minority education rights. They are planning to take legal action and try to get exempted from Bill 40.

Bill 40 is seen as a complement to the Charter of French Language, also known as Bill 101. Bill 101 was adopted to increase the use of French in comparison to English. Bill 101 states that all students must attend a French language school unless they have a parent who did a majority of their schooling in English and is a Canadian citizen or the student did a majority of their schooling in English already.