1.4 million jobs to be filled by 2019 - The challenge lies in basic training

MONTREAL, June 15, 2011 / CNW Telbec / - Basic training, namely secondary V, is a prerequisite for enrolling in the best professional secondary programs and technical programs at CEGEP. The contribution of these two streams is essential to fill the 1.4 million jobs that will have to be filled by 2019. However, nearly one in two adults in Quebec suffers from serious deficiencies in reading and writing, and none new measure is not planned to alleviate this serious problem.

This is one of the main findings of the Mouvement québécois des adults en formation (MQAF) at the end of the national meeting on the harmonization of training and employment, which was held on June 13 and 14 in Quebec City.

In the work in workshops, the MQAF recalled a glaring anomaly in the adult education system: while general secondary and vocational secondary have more than 250,000 adults and the university, around 75,000, there are all of them. at most 35,000 throughout the college network.

The fault is not with the establishments, but with the Ministry of Education, which perpetuates the system of closed budgetary envelopes at the college level. It is illogical that it is easier for an adult, even without a diploma, to be admitted to a university than to enroll in a CEGEP.

For Ms. Catherine Jasmin, who represented the MQAF at this event, "it is inconsistent to recall the great challenge of filling hundreds of thousands of jobs in a few years when the door to college studies is barely open for adults".

Ms. Jasmin, however, retains some positive elements of this meeting, including the promise of the Minister of Employment and Social Solidarity, Ms. Julie Boulet, to create a one-stop shop for the recognition of prior learning. She also noted that the Minister of Education, Recreation and Sport, Ms. Line Beauchamp, announced increased efforts to develop distance education and the implementation of information technologies in high school. She also indicated that students enrolled in a program leading to an attestation of vocational studies (AEP) will henceforth be eligible for financial assistance, which was not the case until now. The MQAF demanded this measure.

Finally, we note that the entire training-employment harmonization strategy does not include any significant budgetary allocation. It is therefore a question of doing more with less, as the commonplace says, an imperative whose outcome is at the very least uncertain.

To learn more about the MQAF, visit the website www.mqaf.qc.ca.