The Symposium on Education, which is a part of the Symposia Series organized by the Council of Ontario Universities, was held at Glendon College on Thursday, May 23, 2013. This event provided an opportunity for various experts to identify a number of challenges that must be faced by anyone working in the secondary and post-secondary education of the province’s Métis and Francophone students.
The Symposium was moderated by Solange Belluz, Manager of the French- Language Continued Learning Unit, French-Language Policy and Programs Branch, which serves the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities of the Province of Ontario.
The Challenges of Educating Métis Youth
The first speaker was Jennifer St. Germain, who has been working for Ontario’s Métis public service for more than 14 years. She explained that Métis have long been “underground” or invisible in this province. The challenges involved in educating young Métis include first and foremost the fact that so few of them graduate from high school. She feels that we obviously need to do more, especially because the Métis population is young and dynamic and wants to contribute to society.
“We mustn’t be afraid of innovative ideas,” she said. “We need to develop new programs intended for Métis along with ‘enabling’ programs to smooth the difficult transition between the secondary and postsecondary levels.” Other elements she would like to see include a larger number of Métis teachers in our schools. She concluded by stating that Métis have made incredible progress in education. “Our students see that the barriers have now fallen and that they can aspire higher in everything,” she said.
Brenda Macdougall, Chair of Métis Research and Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Ottawa, spoke about the need for Native Studies. Such programs will allow native populations to reach out, be seen and heard, and make themselves known to other Canadians. In this way, non-native Canadians will be able to learn from Métis and become familiar with their unique perspective on the history of this country. Such studies must also foster the enrichment of discipline-specific research in all universities.
Ms. Macdougall went further, expressing her opinion that Native Studies should be part of the primary and secondary curriculum. “We must provide materials about First Nations to enable native and other educators to teach this history. Of course, we have to know how to read, write and count but we also need to know our history,” she maintained. “We’re not a minority in Canada,” she explained; “we are the first people of Canada. Our history is as important as the histories of Francophones and Anglophones, and we, too, have suffered from colonialism.” She added that, collectively, we need a fundamental paradigm shift in how we think about our priorities as Canadians, and that this shift must be shared by all Canadians. In her view, Ontario is uniquely positioned to take leadership in this direction. To do so, additional educational resources will be required for Indians, Métis and Innu.
Ms. Macdougall also hammered home the fact that we need to promote the idea that education is important for all of us. “The First Nations population is growing at a faster rate than the Canadian population in general; if all these native youth are without work, our country will face a serious problem because the result will be a ‘social underclass’ made up of uneducated and unskilled young people, and we know what comes from that,” she concluded.
The Challenges of Educating Francophone Youth
The participants then turned to the issue of educating Francophones and Francophiles in Ontario. To this end, Normand Labrie, Scientific Director of the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et Culture [Québec Research Fund – Society and Culture], and former director over a 10-year period of the Centre de recherche en éducation franco-ontarienne [Franco-Ontarian Research Centre], called to mind two recent reports on postsecondary training for Ontario’s Francophones: the January 2013 report of the Expert Panel of the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities and the June 2012 report of François Boileau, French Language Services Commissioner of Ontario. Mr. Labrie indicated that these reports have not remained dead letters because the recent Throne Speech made explicit reference to Ontario’s Francophone community and established the goal of “increasing the delivery of training in French in Central and Southern Ontario.”
In Labrie’s view, there is a strong demand in Ontario for French-language education that is not being supported by an equivalent availability of programs in French. He pointed out that “an increasing number of students are enrolling in the French-language schools but there is a clear lack of resources; as a result, Francophones defect to the Anglophone sector.” Some students opt for English-language universities because of the patchiness of the French programs, as well as for financial reasons and family attachments.
Labrie pointed out that the Expert Panel initiated a number of developmental projects, i.e.: an emphasis on the Toronto area; the development of a strategy capitalizing on collaboration and mobilization with the existing institutions; and the development of new French-language programs that take emerging needs into account.
Kenneth McRoberts
Glendon Principal Kenneth McRoberts began by raising two questions: What are the best support strategies for at-risk students and what recommendations should be made to the Ontario government? In his opinion, one way to improve the students’ situation is to offer to Francophone students programs that match their needs. The bilingual universities are in fierce competition with their English-speaking counterparts. It follows then that accessibility to programs in French must be enhanced and that the resource discrepancy between Eastern/Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario must be reduced. This discrepancy explains why students tend to abandon the Francophone sector for the Anglophone. In McRoberts’s view, a second trend must be countered, namely the trend for three-quarters of high school graduates to go to English-speaking universities.
He also feels that we need to promote the intrinsic value of postsecondary studies in French among Francophone youth, even though the emphasis thus far has been placed primarily on the advantages of bilingualism and the drawbacks of unilingualism. McRoberts further suggests strengthening ties among Francophone institutions and communities; in this way, programs would be better adapted and students would receive more effective support from the Francophone community.
Another measure advocated by McRoberts consists in ensuring the continuity of the bilingual and Francophone institutions by having them designated as “services” under the French Language Services Act of Ontario. “The emphasis must be placed on Southern Ontario, where the number of Francophones is increasing; efforts must be focused on this region in order to strengthen education in French in the southern part of the Province.” To achieve this, he added, we must rely on the support of the institutions that are rooted in this region. He concluded with a smile, saying: “In other words, we need to invest in Glendon College.”
Discussion Period
During this period, participants noted the strong demographic growth among First Nations people and Francophones, and the consequent need for high-quality information vis-à-vis these populations. Researchers are faced with research of lower quality because of underinvestment in the social sciences and humanities and in public policy research. However, McRoberts considers that the research on Francophones in Southern Ontario has already been done and that we have the required data.
Also noted was the fact that nearly 10 years after the Rae Report on the state of higher education in Ontario, the student population enrolled in advanced studies has greatly changed. Today’s long-term perspectives are different, whether we are talking about courses in French for Francophones or Glendon’s role in bilingual education – and everything is now taking place in the context of fiscal austerity. As a result of this austerity, we cannot hope to see new institutions and must make greater and more effective use of the ones that exist already.
John Godfrey, Headmaster of the Toronto French School, stated that there are more children in immersion schools (155,000) than in French-language schools. He also added that only 25% of children who would like to enrol in immersion will actually be able to do so in September because of various system barriers. He considers bilingual Francophones to be an asset for Ontario. And yet, children in the Francophone secondary schools do not have enough exit doors leading to bilingual postsecondary institutions. In this sense, the intention expressed in the recent Throne Speech is most welcome.
By Michel Héroux
COU: Health
The Council of Ontario Universities presented a symposium on Health at Glendon on September 24th, Tackling Ontario’s Challenges – Experts and Decision Makers Meet to Explore Ontario’s Key Policy Challenges.
