Parents unsure where to enrol children after release of French-language report
New Brunswick parents are waiting to hear whether the government will be following up on a commission's recommendation to eliminate early French immersion in the province.
Education Minister Kelly Lamrock said Wednesday that the government has not yet decided on the commission's 18 recommendations, but the idea of a universal, intensive French learning experience appeals to him.
"I'm pro-bilingualism, and I think French is a fundamental competency and bilingualism is a fundamental competency and therefore, I like the idea of teaching it to everybody to the best of our ability," Lamrock said.
The government will be waiting to see how New Brunswickers react to the report and examining what resources would be needed to implement its recommendations before making any decisions, said the minister.
If any of the recommendations are accepted this spring, changes could be made to the education system for September, he said.
New French program would begin in Grade 5
There's been weeks of uncertainty for parents who have been trying to decide whether to enrol their children into French immersion or the core French program while waiting for the report to be released, said Jane Keith, executive director of the New Brunswick branch of Canadian Parents for French.
"They're attending French immersion and core French registration and information meetings at their schools, and they're being told about the programs and then, at the end of all that, they're being told that could all change depending on what the minister announces he's going to do with recommendations from the French second-language review."
The report of the French second-language commission was released on Wednesday. Among the recommendations is that the early French immersion program, which currently begins in Grade 1, be grandfathered out of the education system because it is not meeting its objectives for language proficiency and has dwindling enrolment numbers and a high drop out rate.
The report also indicates that the core French curriculum, which is a non-immersion program that makes French a mandatory subject for students in Grades 1 to 10, is also not reaching its goal of having 70 per cent of high school graduates be at intermediate oral proficiency.
The study, which looked at French-language instruction between 1995 and 2006, found that of the Grade 12 students graduating from the core French program, only 0.68 per cent met the provincial objectives.
The report favours adopting a new French-language system, which would begin in Grade 5 with an intensive five-month French program. Students would than have the option of moving into a more extensive version of core French in Grade 6 or entering an immersion program. All French-language schooling would also continue until Grade 12.
Uncertainty for parents enrolling children for fall
Saint John resident Tim Jackson had been trying to decide if he should enrol his six-year-old into the early immersion program, and now he isn't sure what his family will do, he said.
"It's a real question," Jackson said. "What do we do? Do we put him in the normal stream, do we consider trying to get him into the French school system and have our kids in different schools? What's the solution?"
Moncton resident Kim Mowat currently has a six-year-old enrolled in the early immersion program and had hoped to put her two younger daughters into the program, too, she said. Mowat said she is now considering moving all her children to a French school district instead.
Parents can't be kept in the dark while the government makes a decision on how to proceed, said Bill Fairweather, chair of the Forest Hills Elementary School parent support committee.
"Parents should have been kept up to date on what the original plan was and how they're going to change it," Fairweather said. "They're just looking at the review and not telling us basically anything about it."