The dropout rate at the Centre de services scolaires des Trois-Lacs increased dramatically during the pandemic. This is according to the latest data published by the Institut de la statistique du Québec on Monday June 10.

For the 2021-2022 school year, 6,388 students attended one of the three secondary schools governed by the CSSTL. Of these, 11.8% left high school without a diploma, compared with 9.6% the previous year, when 6,188 students were enrolled.

In the region, as elsewhere in Quebec, boys are still more likely to drop out of high school. For the 2021-2022 school year, nearly 14% of dropouts were male, compared with 9.9% of girls.

For Quebec as a whole, the dropout rate rose from 13.8% in 2020-2021 to 16.3% in 2021-2022.

The Ministry of Education is keen to point out, however, that "data on students leaving high school without a diploma or qualification cannot be used to isolate the dropout phenomenon from other causes of school leaving, such as emigration, morbidity or even mortality".

The phenomenon is also felt in English-speaking schools. For the 2021-2022 school year, the dropout rate in the Lester-B-Pearson School Board has risen by 4.3 percentage points compared to the previous year, from 11.7% to 16%. However, the difference between boys and girls was less marked, with 16.4% of dropouts being boys, compared with 15.4% of girls.