School/work balance is an essential element to ensuring educational success and increasing the graduation rate among youth. Numerous studies have addressed the subject enabling certain conditions to be identified. Moreover, as surveys reveal, school/work balance concerns a large number of students in the Estrie region who, for a variety of reasons, have part-time jobs while they are in school.
The Projet PRÉE, as a regional mobilization project dedicated to educational success, has incorporated the notion of school/work balance into its priority projects. Properly managing study time and paid work time is recognized as an important factor to educational success.
TECIÉ's 2006-2011 mobilization and action plan to address dropping out and increase qualification and graduation rates of young people in Estrie highlights that
close links between the school and work environments gives young people meaning and perspective regarding their education.
In April 2008, the Projet PRÉE brought together 25 multi-sectoral partners from local and regional sectors (educational, economic, social and employability) to discuss school/work balance. The results of this meeting demonstrated the partners' desire to develop a concept of "regional" school/work balance with a common message, regional tools and consistent certification/commitment and also showed the importance of implementing the concept by MRC territory and thus adapting it the local reality of each region. 
