A change in Quebec’s school calendar which would permit three Orthodox Jewish schools a sixth day for classes, would allow those schools to teach the full Quebec curriculum, says Adam Atlas, president of the Quebec Jewish Congress.

“What counts is that every child in the province studies the mandated curriculum,” Atlas said yesterday, calling “hypocritical” opposition parties and unions objecting to the change.

Freedom of religion is in Quebec’s human rights charter, Atlas said, adding that the three schools, whose priority is teaching religion, would have had to close without the change.

Teaching the Catholic, Jewish or Muslim faiths is “part of a free and open, and ethnically diverse society,” Atlas said.

Quebec’s public schools have been non-denominational since 1998, but private schools, subsidized 60 per cent by the province, may teach religion. They must also teach the full Quebec curriculum but the three religious schools have argued they do not have time to teach the other subjects.

Meanwhile, teachers, currently involved in contract talks with the province, say the change would strip them of their bargaining power.

“(Education Minister Michelle Courchesne) is solving the question of the Jewish schools and at the same time she can impose flexibility in the negotiations now under way, under the false cover of academic success,” Manon Bernard, president of the Fédération des syndicats de l’enseignement, said yesterday.

The change means schools may impose weekend activities without teachers’ consent, Bernard said.

Courchesne said the aim of flexible school hours is to reduce Quebec’s 30-per-cent dropout rate, but Bernard said adding hours without adding teachers won’t solve the problem.

The teachers’ unions propose, instead, a 20-per-cent reduction in class sizes.

François Bonnardel, of Action démocratique du Québec, called the calendar change “a joke,” explaining that Quebec’s high dropout rate is a serious problem and weekend classes is not the solution.

“I think we have to find another way to keep our children in school,” Bonnardel said.