Education Minister Francois Blais confirmed on Friday that there will be no more school board elections in Quebec.

Ministry officials said the commissioners elected last year could be replaced by next summer.

Commissioners who heard the news at Friday's conference of the Quebec Federation of School Boards were stunned and called the move undemocratic.

The news that commissioners will be appointed is worrying members of Quebec's English School Board Association.

"These are English rights. He's touching on English rights," said Stephen Burke.

The QEBSA argues elections are a constitutional right for English-speaking Quebecers, and members say they will fight to maintain that right.

"If we lose the managing power, the governance of power, and the right to decide who does that governance then we no longer have any institutions that we can consider our own," said Burke.

An Education Ministry representative told CTV Montreal Friday morning that the ministry is waiting for the boards to present alternatives.

Quebec School Board Federation president Josée Bouchard continued to suggest that the elections be scheduled along with the municipal elections, but Blais said that is too costly -- and pointed to the single-digit voter turnout in 2013 as a sign that the public does not care.

Anglophone boards said that while fewer than five percent of francophones voted, more than 17 percent of those eligible cast ballots for their boards.

Bouchard also said that polls also suggest that many do not want the provincial government to take the collection and distribution of $2 billion in school taxes.

Legislation could be passed this fall and board commissioners could be replaced in the spring or summer of 2016.

Burke said he is worried what the new boards would look like, and whose interests they would place first.

"Imagine you have two people from specific groups in the community... Another group of teachers, parents. municipal... All varied interests. How are they going to work for the students?" said Burke.

"They are going to work for their corporate interests.