English schools open for community
Leah Moss is the co-president of the Quebec Association for Adult Learning based in the Education Department.
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In Canada’s early days, the school was the centre of the community. Gradually — through the specialization of the curriculum, the fragmentation of the school system, and for many other reasons — that changed. Now the Quebec government is launching a project to restore that community dimension to some schools.
Noel Burke, Assistant Deputy Minister for the English-Speaking Community in the Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport (MELS), spoke to members of the Quebec Association for Adult Learning (QAAL) at Concordia on March 29.
He was there to explain community learning centres, or CLCs. A three-year initiative funded through the Quebec-Canada Entente for Minority Languages in Canada, CLCs are being developed in 15 English-language schools, many of them in quite isolated areas.
Based on a model developed in a poor neighbourhood of New York City, the CLC will stay open on weekends and beyond the school day as the site for all sorts of community development, from dance classes to adult literacy and association meetings.
The idea is to deliver educational and support services in a seamless and integrated fashion by pooling resources and sharing the responsibility of service delivery with as many citizens as possible.
Burke’s talk marked the fifth annual Quebec Adult Learning Week (Semaine Québécoise des adultes en formation) for QAAL, which is based in Concordia’s Education Department.
QAAL co-president Leah Moss is enthusiastic about the CLC concept. “We expect that Concordia will find ways to partner with the CLC initiative since they are such a good community partner and have so much to offer,” she said.
“The needs of the English-speaking communities in Quebec are substantial in terms of their dispersion, distance and lack of services in English. We are confident that once a need within the CLC network is identified, we can broker something with Concordia and get them involved in this exciting endeavour.”