Ministry says clarification coming next week
By Lawrence Belanger
Local Journalism Initiative
Education students and administrators of education programs in Quebec are awaiting clarification from the Quebec Ministry of Education regarding the residency requirement for the Quebec Perspective Bursary Program. Bishop’s University Dean of Education, Dr. Julie Desjardins, says that she and the other education deans of Quebec universities are in “dialogue” with the Ministry of Education to prevent their out-of-province students from being left behind in the transition from the previous bursary program, which had no such requirement.
According to Desjardins, students who have pursued education degrees at Quebec universities were previously eligible for up to $3,900 under the “Intern Perseverance and Success Scholarship”, to assist with funding their final practicum in their fourth year of studies. Moving forward, teacher education students will be eligible for bursaries under the “Quebec Perspective Scholarship” program, which instead provides semester-based payments of $2,500, in order to support their studies as a whole.
“This scholarship is much more interesting because you can have up to $20,000 in scholarship money,” explains Desjardins, but the program is “excluding students who want to come to Quebec to study,” she laments.
