Editing Education in Quebec (section)

===Religion in schools ===
Formerly, school boards were divided between [[Roman Catholic]] and [[Protestant]] (called "confessional schools"). Attempts were made to set up a [[Jewish]] school board before the Second World War, but it failed partly due to divisions within the Jewish community. This confessional system was established through the [[British North America Act, 1867]] (today the [[Constitution Act, 1867]]), which granted power over education to the provinces. Article 93 of the act made it unconstitutional for Quebec to change this system. Consequently, a constitutional amendment was required to operate what some see as the separation of the State and the church in Quebec.

The Quebec Education Act of 1988 provided for a change to linguistic school boards. In 1997, a unanimous vote by the [[National Assembly of Quebec]] allowed for Quebec to request that the Government of Canada exempt the province from Article 93 of the Constitution Act. This request was passed by the [[Parliament of Canada|federal parliament]], resulting in [[Royal Assent]] being granted to the Constitutional Amendment, 1997, (Quebec).

In the 1996–1997 school year, Quebec had 156 school districts including 135 Catholic districts, 18 Protestant school districts, and three First Nations districts. The school districts operated 2,670 public schools, including 1,895 primary schools, 576 general or professional secondary schools, and 199 combined primary and secondary schools.<ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/19980128012244/http://www.gouv.qc.ca/educ/sortie/meqf2.htm Les réseaux scolaires publics et privés]." Government of Quebec. January 28, 1998. Retrieved on December 21, 2012. "En 1996-1997, on dénombre 156 commissions scolaires dont 135 reconnues comme catholiques, dix-huit reconnues comme protestantes, et trois à statut particulier qui desservent principalement les élèves autochtones. En 1996-1997, les 156 commissions scolaires gèrent 2 670 écoles publiques. De ce nombre, 1 895 écoles donnent uniquement l'enseignement primaire, 576, uniquement l'enseignement secondaire général ou professionnel, alors que 199 écoles offrent à la fois l'enseignement primaire et l'enseignement secondaire."</ref>

When public schools were deconfessionalized in 2000, Catholic and Protestant religious education classes along with nonreligious moral education classes continued to be part of the curriculum.  Article 5 of the Quebec Public Education Act had been modified in 1997 so as to allow minority religious groups to be allowed religious education classes of their faith where their number were large enough, but this was removed in 2000.  Then, in order to prevent court challenges by these same minority religious groups wanting specialist religious education in schools, the government invoked the [[Section Thirty-three of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms|notwithstanding clause]], which expires after a maximum of 5 years.  In 2005 the government of [[Premier of Quebec|Premier]] [[Jean Charest]] decided not to renew the clause, abrogate Article 5 of the Public Education Act, modify Article 41 of the Quebec Charter of Rights and then eliminate the choice in moral and religious instruction that existed previously and, finally, impose a controversial new [[Ethics and religious culture]] curriculum to all schools, even the private ones. {{citation needed|date=November 2015}}  The ERC course has been taught starting in September 2008. Several court challenges have been launched against its compulsory nature.