QUEBEC'S CEGEP: PROMISE AND REALITY

Abstract

Since the first twelve Colleges d'enseignement general et professionel (Cegeps) were opened in September, 1967, to accommodate all students proceeding beyond the secondary level, these institutions have been a source of intense interest, pride, criticism, and controversy. A considerable body of writing on the Cegep has been produced, primarily in the form of newspaper articles and official publications. While this has been of a high quality and doubtless informative, little by way of analysis, particularly in English, has appeared... At present efforts are underway, including those of the authors, to gain a more substantial understanding of this institution, but, in the meantime, the Cegep is much too vital and significant an aspect of Quebec education to be excluded from any consideration of the contemporary Quebec educational scene.

Given the preliminary nature of our findings, the relative absence of a scholarly basis of analysis, and the recency of the Cegep's formation, the observations and conclusions in this paper are quite tentative and speculative. Nonetheless, we have attempted to furnish an answer to two fundamental questions: what is a Cegep? who is served by the Cegep?