Quebec is investing in an “unprecedented” digital shift that aims to improve academic success through artificial intelligence, which will notably make it possible to identify students at risk and intervene effectively with them.
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The adventure has already been underway at the Center de services scolaire in Cœur-des-Vallées, in Outaouais, for about two years.
In this service centre, we wanted to act upstream rather than waiting for a student to be absent from school for a few days before sounding the alarm.
A tool was designed in collaboration with a private company: it is used to predict which teenagers are most likely to drop out. Not only do we take into account, of course, school results, but also several other factors (absences, behavioral problems, etc.).
Since the beginning of the year, school principals have received a monthly list of students to watch closely. The school teams can thus adapt their interventions and services to this monthly list.
“It’s a really incredible tool, it allows us to detect students who are in a gray area and who fell into a crack before,” says Daniel Bellemare, director general of this school service center.
The school team, which no longer has to do the data analysis itself with the means at hand, thus has more time to devote to its students, he adds.
Digital intelligence project
This type of initiative is part of the “digital intelligence project” which was announced Monday by the Legault government.
The Center de services scolaire at Cœur-des-Vallées as well as that of Val-des-Cerfs, in Montérégie, have “shown the way” by acting as “pioneers” in this regard, indicated the Minister of Education, Jean-Francois Roberge. “We are inspired by what they do to do even better,” he added.
A portrait in real time
In addition to making this type of tool available throughout the school network, the Ministère de l’Éducation will rely on the use of “real-time” data to enable better management of the education network.
Until very recently, data was collected manually in the school network, which represented a veritable “uphill battle”. This way of doing things, which slowed down the school network during the pandemic, “is no longer acceptable” in 2022, said Minister Roberge.
The use of digital intelligence will produce “dashboards” that will serve to better guide the decisions of the government and the school network with a view to improving the services offered to students, he added, while establishing a parallel with the changes made to the Ministry of Health since the start of the pandemic.
From the start of the 2022 school year, the first integrated data on student absenteeism and success, on needs in terms of school staff and on the progress of work in schools will be available. Other real-time data will be added later.
This is the “first major artificial intelligence project of the Government of Quebec”, indicated, for his part, Minister Éric Caire, responsible for the Strategy for the integration of artificial intelligence in public administration, who underlined its “nerve” aspect.
Quebec is investing $10.6 million over two years in this project. It will work with recognized partners, such as the Quebec Institute of Artificial Intelligence (Mila) and the Institute for Data Valorization (IVADO).