Québec Education Program
- Goals
- Broad areas of learning
- Competencies
- Subject areas and programs of study
- Cultural references
- Evaluation of learning
By its very nature and the synergy of its components, the Québec Education Program pays considerable attention to the cultural dimension.
Goals
This attention is evident in the three avenues of the Québec Education Program (QEP). Culture is an inexhaustible reservoir of resources that students can use to gain a world-view, develop their identity and their power to act.
To fulfill such aims, it is necessary to take into account:
- who the students are
- the physical, family, cultural and social environment with which they interact
- the tools they need in order to benefit from the interaction
Learning is considered socially significant when it provides students with tools to better understand the social, cultural and physical world they belong to.
Broad areas of learning
The broad areas of learning deal with various questions that students are trying to answer in their personal, physical, social and cultural environments.
Some of the areas are quite closely associated with values ( Citizenship and Community Life, for example). Others concern the students' sociocultural environment (e.g. Environmental Awareness and Consumer Rights and Responsibilities and Media Literacy ).
Whatever their specific characteristics, the broad areas of learning all have several focuses of development that allow for the use of cultural references.
Competencies
The QEP uses a competency-based approach, defining a competency as a set of behaviours based on the effective mobilization and use of a range of resources.
These resources may take many forms. Some of them are internal, in that they are intrinsic to a person and are not necessarily the result of formal instruction. External resources may also have a cultural dimension.
Whether they are material, technical, human or institutional, they expose students to significant cultural phenomena, which, when put to use, enables them to progress in the development of a competency.
Cross-curricular competencies are developed though contextualization in subject-specific or multi-subject learning situations. Thus, they are all to varying degrees capable of making a contribution.
Subject areas and programs of study
The subject areas are one of the constituent elements of the QEP that facilitate the integration of the cultural dimension into teaching and learning.
The areas of Languages, Arts Education, Mathematics, Science and Technology, Social Sciences, and Personal Development correspond to major components of culture to which students should be exposed in the course of their education.
They are the source of the learning planned for the various programs of study, the objective of which is to make significant dimensions of culture and important aspects of our social, physical and cultural environment accessible and understandable.
Cultural references
An analysis of the programs of study shows that some competencies, components and learning contexts allow connections to be made between significant cultural references and the subjects in the curriculum.
The same is true for much of the essential knowledge and much of the program content. A good deal of the material already consists of significant cultural references that are used dynamically in the development of competencies.
Evaluation of learning
The evaluation of learning is a process that involves making a judgment about the competencies developed and knowledge acquired by a student, in order to make decisions and take action. The judgments must be based on relevant, accurate information that gives the decisions their meaning.
In accordance with the guidelines for evaluation contained in the Policy on the Evaluation of Learning, the values underlying the evaluation of learning are justice, equality and equity, as well as coherence, openness and rigour.
The evaluation of learning is an essential stage that allows students to check, among other things, what they have acquired in terms of culture, for the purpose of gaining autonomy and developing competencies, whether in the arts or another field.
For teachers, the evaluation of learning is an essential tool in increasing their effectiveness in being a guide and conduit for culture.
