Regional Disparities in Access to Education 

Observatoire québécois des inégalités has just released its Bulletin de l’égalité des chances en éducation 2025, the third edition of this report. Professor Xavier St-Denis and Banting postdoctoral fellow Véronique Grenier, both from Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), contributed to this year’s publication.

For the past three years, the report has documented inequalities across Québec’s education system, from early childhood to postsecondary education, using provincial indicators. This year, for the first time, the report also includes regional data. 

“It is essential to examine regional inequalities in order to provide up-to-date descriptive data and knowledge about disparities in Québec’s education system, for both local stakeholder and the general public,” explains Professor St-Denis. 

Marked Interregional Inequalities 

A key finding in the section on postsecondary education, co-authored by Professor St-Denis, is the very low rates of access to college and university for young people from disadvantaged families in rural areas. Among this group, only 23% of men and 46% of women pursue college studies, while just 7% of men and 18% of women continue on to university. 

These rates stand in stark contrast to those of young people from more privileged families, over 70% of whom pursue college, as well as to those of disadvantaged youth from urban areas (46% of men and 67% of women pursue college). For students from advantaged families, however, growing up in a rural region carries little to no disadvantage. 

“Our findings support and highlight the conclusions of a previous CIRANO report on social mobility in Québec: young people from disadvantaged rural backgrounds face persistent disadvantages, both in terms of access to education and income levels as adults,” adds the social statistics expert. 

Another important finding noted by Professor St-Denis is the significant gender gap in access to postsecondary education in favour of women—especially at the undergraduate level—across all regions and contexts. 

Xavier St-Denis, Professor at INRS Urbanisation Culture Société Research Centre

“I hope the release of this Bulletin will encourage government agencies to recognize the importance of making their data available to facilitate research and better inform both the public and education stakeholders.” 

A Valuable Tool for the Education Community 

This is also the goal of researcher Véronique Grenier, who co-authored the section on preschool to secondary education. She sees the Bulletin de l’égalité des chances en éducation as a way to build bridges between the research community, public institutions, and education stakeholders. 

Grenier was tasked with compiling quantitative data from Ministère de l’Education and other organizations, from a historical perspective, in order to track students’ educational pathways according to different characteristics (gender, special needs, etc.). 

Understanding to Act More Effectively 

At the elementary level, one key finding is that the proportion of students experiencing academic delay (late entry into the second and third cycles) is higher in the public system than in the private system. The overrepresentation of students from advantaged backgrounds, and of students with few or no learning difficulties, in the private network helps explain, at least in part, the lower proportion of delayed students in that system. Delays are also more common in remote regions and among boys. 

Differences between regions in the proportion of delayed students can partly be explained by the fact that school service centres and school boards have different policies on grade repetition. 

Another noteworthy finding is the strong concentration of private schools in urban areas, especially in Montréal, where more than one in three students attend private school. The report also notes that high school graduation rates are rising overall but remain lower in remote regions. 

“Compiling data—often previously unpublished—allows us to build a quantitative picture of how social inequalities accumulate throughout educational pathways. That’s where our added value lies: we don’t just collect data, we provide the necessary sociological and critical analysis to help social organizations act on it,” says Grenier. 

Véronique Grenier, INRS Banting postdoctoral fellow

Tailored Strategies to Address Inequalities 

The regional disparities highlighted in the Bulletin underscore the need to implement public policies adapted to local contexts, conduct longitudinal studies to better understand educational trajectories, and facilitate access to administrative data. 

Read the Bulletin