June 2025 marks the official end of Lab-École ‘s eight-year mandate, rather than the five originally planned.
Six Scandinavian-inspired schools will have been built in these eight years, and they will unfortunately be the last.
At a conference on the subject, Minister of Education Bernard Drainville mentioned that the end of the project was a decision taken by the project’s founders: Pierre Thibault, Pierre Lavoie and Ricardo Larrivée. That this choice was not made by a government that wanted to cut back on school construction or renovation in Quebec.
Furthermore, in a press release published on the Lab-École organization’s website as well as on their Instagram account, it states:
“In the past year, the board of directors made the decision to end Lab-École ‘s activities considering that the mandate is fully realized and more.”
Despite this decision, the founders make no secret of their disappointment at not having been able to bring a Lab-École project to fruition in Montreal , where the number of dilapidated schools is the highest in the province. Apparently, it would not have been easy to obtain land on the CSSDM territory, but Griffintown would have been a perfect neighborhood for such a project.
Architect Pierre Thibault mentions that the aim of this innovative project was to inspire creativity in the construction of educational facilities. Now, what he would like to see is for this creativity to continue to be expressed through new school construction, but if it’s not Lab-École.
Certainly, when you understand the mission of these schools, it’s hard not to be disappointed to learn that there will be very few of them after all.
The aim of Lab-École is not just to innovate architecturally, but quite simply to rethink the role of the school. It’s no longer the traditional school as we know it, but a place where support is put forward; a socio-affective approach rather than a coercive one. Positive reinforcement rather than punishment. It’s a public school, no selection. A neighborhood school for everyone. It’s a place that’s meant to be catchy, where we get away from the lecture and get much more practical, but without losing the transmission of knowledge.
In a Radio-Canada article, the founders mention that although the government has not completed the project, collaboration has not always been straightforward.
According to Pierre Lavoie: “Education is not yet a priority in Quebec. Regardless of the government, we have to rebuild. Quebec schools are 60 years old
,” reported Radio-Canada.
Pierre Thibault, for his part, deplores the fact that: “In the big ministries, we see that deputy ministers change often, that teams change often. It’s hard to stay the course of innovation when all the teams change”.
Ricardo Larrivée added that: “As soon as governments feel that there’s economic pressure, that there’s an election, they’re all the same: they’re afraid. So they react with caution rather than vision. It’s the role of citizens to remind them: no, on the contrary, we want a vision.”
So that’s the end of this project, which has shown that it is possible to rethink school and take it out of its traditional framework, where not all students can find their place.