Reduce English teaching in CEGEPs, universities: language commissioner

Source: https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/reduce-english-teaching-in-cegeps-universities-language-commissioner

QUEBEC — Quebec’s French language commissioner has recommended the provincial government take further steps to protect the language by reducing English teaching in CEGEPs and universities so that 85 per cent of students take their courses in French.

In a report on the future of French tabled in the National Assembly Wednesday, Benoît Dubreuil says the percentage of students in Quebec choosing to study in English in CEGEP and university — 22.4 per cent, or almost one in five — is “too high.”

Gradually reducing the percentage would “ensure the predominance of French in the higher education system, including in Montreal, at the same time as recognizing the need for a reasonable amount of English,” Dubreuil says.

Getting to the 85 per cent level would not mean extending the rules of the Charter of the French Language to the CEGEP system — something the Coalition Avenir Québec government has ruled out in the past — but it would entail applying the same kind of medicine to the university system as Quebec did with Bill 96 in CEGEPs.

When Bill 96, which amended the Charter of the French Language, was adopted in 2022, it imposed three French courses in the English CEGEP system. That in itself is already helping Quebec move toward the 85 per cent target, Dubreuil said.

“A similar logic could be applied at the university level,” Dubreuil says in his report, a response to a separate report on the state of French recently produced by the Office québécois de la langue française.

He floats the idea of universities offering certain courses — such as in business or IT — in French, which could improve the state of the language without having to go down the path of more legislation.