AREAS OF INTERVENTION

AREA III: MOBILIZATION OF PARTNERS AND STAKEHOLDERS IN SUPPORT OF EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS

During the public consultations held in the fall of 2016, the collaboration, mobilization and concerted action of the various stakeholders and partners in education emerged as a shared priority. This is a direct reflection of the fact that education is a social responsibility that requires a shared vision of educational success in order to ensure consistent and complementary actions.

Also, educational childcare centres’ contribution to educational success was unanimously recognized by all participants.

Every sector of society has high expectations of our educational childcare centres and schools. However, education is a collective effort in which the general public must participate in a way that is commensurate with those expectations. Hence these expectations are legitimate only when those who have them participate actively in the development of educational childcare centres and schools.

This third broad area of intervention includes two major challenges associated with parents, other family members, and the community.

Challenge 7 – Better support for parental engagement

The determining role of parents and other family members in the overall development of children, their educational path and their path to success is another major consensus that emerged from the public consultations. Research has shown that parental involvement and enriched parenting experiences are major determining factors of success. Therefore, it is essential that every effort be made to promote and support parental involvement from a very early age.

Parents and sometimes other members of the immediate family create an environment conducive to learning and provide children with the support they need. It is recognized, for example, that frequent family literacy activities in childhood foster motivation and educational success. Also, parents who improve their literacy and numeracy skills are able to help their children more effectively with school work.

  • Orientation 7.1 - Promote parental engagement and support the relationship between family and educational setting

Implementation

In order to foster parental and family involvement in children’s educational success from a very young age, the government will:

  • promote parents’ engagement in their children’s educational success from a very young age
  • help parents of kindergarten and Elementary 1 students enhance their parenting experience and develop their parenting skills
  • support parents and community representatives who want to become involved in school life, particularly by sitting on governing boards and parent committees
  • support Alloprof in its new Alloparents platform aimed at counselling parents in their role as supporters of their children’s education

Challenge 8 – Concerted community support

Educational childcare centres and schools alone cannot act on every factor of educational success, which stems from a process involving numerous factors and stakeholders that influence the child’s or student’s progress. It is important to act on several determining factors at once in a complementary fashion and in a variety of environments, in order to improve the effectiveness of these interventions.

Beyond the engagement of the immediate community, the goals of the Policy on Educational Success cannot be achieved without a general mobilization across all social, economic, political and cultural strata. We must act at the local level as well as socially, and in concert.

  • Orientation 8.1 Promote education, schools, the value of school staff and the role of educational childcare services
  • Orientation 8.2 Strengthen ties between educational settings and community stakeholders
  • Orientation 8.3 Increase the contribution of the education system to the vitality of the territory and the maintenance of small communities

Implementation

To more firmly anchor schools in their community, the government will:

  • support community action organizations working with families and in the field of education and issues tables on student retention and success in Québec by fostering a complementary relationship between them and schools and educational childcare centres
  • open up dialogue with the business community to solicit its involvement beyond adapting vocational training to labour market needs and make companies aware of the importance of educational success
  • encourage the promotion and continued presence in schools at the local, regional and provincial levels of models of educational and professional success
  • take into consideration local and regional realities when developing and implementing action plans, strategies and measures that affect small schools and land use
Area II