Complaints

The Ministère is committed to providing high-quality services. If you are dissatisfied with an administrative service you received, a program in which you participated or a decision made by the Ministère de l’Éducation, you can file a complaint.

If you are dissatisfied with the services provided or that should have been provided by your SSC or SB, you must contact that organization directly. All SSCs, SBs and private educational institutions have a three-step provincial procedure in place for examining complaints.

For more information, please consult the File a complaint if you are dissatisfied with a school service web page of the National Student Ombudsman.

Disclosure

For more information on disclosing sexual misconduct or inappropriate behaviour in the school network, consult the Report an act of sexual violence against a student web page of the National Student Ombudsman.

If you are not satisfied with a service the Ministère has provided, you may lodge a complaint with the Direction de l’accès à l’information et des plaintes, which will forward it to the person responsible for the services in question.

• 418-646-5324, ext. 6023 or 1-866-643-4806, ext. 6023
• Complaints form

Complaints that cannot be addressed to the Ministère

A complaint cannot be addressed by the Ministère if it is related to:

• services provided by public and private educational institutions (schools, colleges, universities, school service centres, English-language school boards and special-status school boards). If you are dissatisfied with a service you received from one of these institutions, please contact them directly.
• matters under the responsibility of any other ministry, organization or body
• matters that are currently before the courts
• requests for access to a document
• anonymous complaints or complaints containing hateful or offensive statements

If you wish to make a comment or request information, you must fill out the form for contacting the Ministère de l’Éducation for general information .

Handling of the complaint

If you file a complaint using the complaints form , you will receive an acknowledgment of receipt and a file number. Please keep this number in order to follow up on your file.

If you file a complaint by fax or regular mail, the Direction de l’accès à l’information et des plaintes will send you an acknowledgment of receipt within five days following receipt of the complaint.

If necessary, someone will contact you to obtain any additional information required to process your file. Your complaint will then be forwarded to the appropriate administrative unit at the Ministère. You will receive the results of the examination of your complaint within a maximum of 20 working days.

You are advised not to use email to communicate with the administrative units responsible for processing your complaint, as this communication method is not secure and may not be confidential.

Right to access information and have it corrected

You have the right to consult information that you have provided in filing your complaint and to ask for correction of any inaccurate, incomplete or ambiguous information. To do so, please contact the Direction de l’accès à l’information et des plaintes.

If you are dissatisfied with the response to your complaint, you can contact the Direction de l’accès à l’information et des plaintes again and it may review your file a second time. You will receive an acknowledgment of receipt and a response, in accordance with the above procedure.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response obtained after this review, the Québec Ombudsman can also receive complaints concerning the Ministère de l’Éducation’s activities and services.