Over the past few weeks, hundreds of students across the Pontiac joined thousands more across Quebec in celebrating graduation alongside classmates, families and teachers. Clad in gowns, prom dresses and brand-new suits, they marked one of life’s biggest milestones. Yet, despite its significance, graduation rarely makes headlines. It is celebrated within schools, families and sometimes entire communities, but seldom recognized as the regional event it truly is.
About 300 students attend École secondaire Sieur-de-Coulonge and roughly 400 attend Pontiac High School. While not all are in Secondary 5, those figures illustrate the size of the cohorts moving through our schools. Over the course of just a few years, hundreds of students pass through our classrooms. Today, many are earning their diplomas and taking the next step toward adulthood.
In the Outaouais, more than 80 per cent of students now earn a secondary school diploma or qualification, a figure that has continued to climb in recent years. In the public school system, the rate is about 70 per cent. In other words, most students are making it to graduation despite pandemics, school closures, mental health challenges and the rising cost of living. Behind every statistic is a story: a teenager inspired by a dedicated teacher, a parent juggling work and family responsibilities, or an employer willing to adjust work schedules to help a student succeed.
We devote countless stories to major economic projects, political disputes and the controversies of the day. Meanwhile, an entire generation’s transition into adulthood is largely confined to graduation albums and social media posts. Yet these graduates are the people who will one day run our businesses, work our farms and staff our public services. They are also the people we hope to persuade to stay in, or return to, the Pontiac
as the region grapples with labour shortages and a rapidly aging population.
Recognizing graduation as a regional event means looking beyond the prom photos to ask how many of these young people will be able to study, build careers and raise families here. It means acknowledging that, in a region where school dropout rates and the
number of students leaving without a diploma remain higher than elsewhere in Quebec, every diploma earned is a collective victory. It also means asking a more difficult question: what can we do, as a community, to ensure that as many of these graduates as possible one day return to hang their names on the doors of Pontiac businesses, farms, schools and community organizations?
This June, the biggest story may not have been the loudest. It may have been the hundreds of graduates who will help write the Pontiac’s next chapter.
(Trans. PJ)
