An Early Childhood Center (CPE) in the Magdalen Islands received no fewer than 1,000 resumes as part of a recruitment drive in Morocco to hire fewer than half a dozen educators.
• Also read: Nurses from elsewhere to save our healthcare system
• Also read: Hundreds of nurses from around the world as reinforcements in Quebec
“Our own team is limited to 13 educators, including three who, although they only have deputy status, are on the timetable each week,” explained CPE Chez Ma tante Acting Director Mélanie Bernard. That means we don’t have anyone as a backup. If a kindergarten teacher gets sick tomorrow morning, we don’t have anyone to replace her who isn’t already working.
PHOTO SUPPLIED BY ALEXANDRE BESSETTE
Mélanie Bernard, interim director of the CPE Chez Ma tante, and Alexandre Bessette, consultant for territorial marketing at the Municipality of the Islands, pictured in Marrakech, Morocco, on Friday morning.
It manages 107 childcare places in three different facilities, but currently only operates 60 in one of these facilities due to labor shortages.
Ms. Bernard is currently in Morocco to meet 35 candidates selected in a first selection. Then, upon his return to the archipelago, a second round of videoconference interviews will take place with an even smaller number.
Although its CPE would have to double its staff to reach full capacity, this process cannot lead to the recruitment of more than five educators of Moroccan origin for reasons of integration logistics, which shows the complexity of the situation.
And this labor shortage, which is reflected in a lack of daycare places, does not only affect the CPE Chez Ma tante. The archipelago’s other CPE, La Ramée, still does not have enough educators to open its 70 new courses, for which a brand new building has been built in recent years.
This phenomenon significantly affects the efforts of the municipality of the islands aimed at meeting the urgent needs for labor of the companies on the territory, as it prevents the care of the children of families wishing to settle on the archipelago.
“For us, the early childhood realm has a direct impact on everything to do with attraction and attachment,” said Alexandre Bessette, Territorial Marketing Advisor at the Municipality of the Islands. So we really need to focus on recruiting educators as a community priority.
Mr. Bessette also accompanies Ms. Bernard within the framework of this international recruitment mission, which is being organized these days in Marrakech, Morocco, by the Ministry of Immigration, Franciscans and Integration (MIFI).