Almost one in three students is considered to have special needs in secondary school. Their number has doubled in ordinary classes, where the vast majority of them are located.
The number of students with special needs continues to increase in secondary school.
They were 155,000 students with disabilities or in difficulty of adaptation or learning in 2024-2025, compared to just under 100,000 in 2014-2015, according to the most recent data of the Ministry of Education.
They now represent almost one in three students (31 %), against one in four students (26 %) ten years ago.
The increase is mainly concentrated in ordinary classes, where their number has exploded in recent years, from 61,000 in 2014-2015 to 117,000 in 2024-2025.
In fact, the vast majority of them (75 %) are in ordinary classes, where they are mixed with other students.
By comparison, the increase is much less striking in primary school, where they were 98,000 children with special needs in ordinary class in 2024-2025, against 80,000 in 2014-2015.
A difference which can be explained by the fact that expectations are higher in high school, explains Mélanie Paré, professor in the department of Psychopedagogy at the University of Montreal.
The way to assess students is different between primary and secondary. It can bring more delays and difficulties.
Professor Mélanie Paré, from the University of Montreal
Diagnostics a hairs
The Ministry of Education defines disabled students or in difficulty of adaptation or learning such as those with an intervention plan.
An intervention plan is a tool set up to support students’ academic success with specific challenges. It provides help measures adapted to each, for example leaving more time during exams or allowing access to technological tools.
Autism, deficit disorder of attention or behavior, intellectual or motor disability: students who benefit from an intervention plan have a variety of more or less serious disabilities.
Their increase can be attributable to several factors, including the increase in diagnostics.
“Ten years ago, we heard very little about so -called gifted children or Neurodivergence”, illustrates Mélanie Tremblay, professor of education sciences at the University of Quebec in Rimouski.
Today, both school stakeholders and parents are more aware of the difference. “We allow more to adapt to the reality of each student. In return, it takes intervention plans, ”she notes.
Cups that are felt
Teachers have deplored the increasing number of pupils in difficulty in ordinary classes for a few years.
Some report having up to 15 young people with intervention plans in a group of around thirty students.
The fact that classes are more heterogeneous leads to real challenges, supports Nancy Gaudreau, professor in the Department of Studies on Teaching and Learning of Laval University.
The more I have a great disparity between the nature of the students’ needs, the more it will ask me for knowledge and ability to adapt my learning activities.
Professor Nancy Gaudreau, from Laval University
And this may be even worse with the budgetary effort requested from the education network, she fears.
“It will be the customers most affected by budgetary compressions. What will be cut are orthopedagogue positions, of all those who help them, ”deplores Mme Gaudreau.
Beneficial integration
For students with the most serious disorders, there are specialized classes, also called school adaptation classes. However, their number has not increased significantly for ten years in secondary school.
“We have limited the progress of specialized classes in school service centers to promote diversity in regular classes,” explains Mélanie Paré.
It is not necessarily a bad thing: it has been shown that young people who are integrated into ordinary classes generally succeed better, she maintains.
In addition, the school adaptation classes are among the hardest affected by the shortage of qualified personnel.
“You have to be careful when you think that a specialized class will meet all needs. There is something for whom yes, but it should not be thought that it is a panacea, ”summarizes the professor, a specialist in educational differentiation.
“It is especially for people who have a very, very much delay. »»