Reports on recent College activities and a selection of announcements, events and initiatives in the wider education community.
PAL at the postsecondary level
The need to expand francophone space
Eight years after the rollout of Ontario’s Politique d’aménagement linguistique, or PAL, francophone students are still leaving for the English-language system in significant numbers.
In 2004 the Ministry of Education released PAL to enhance students’ oral communication, boost enrollment in French-language schools and support students’ identity development through radio and TV program production, student discussion networks and youth festivals.
Still, the gradual exodus to the English-language system continues. According to the 2006 census, of a potential pool of 136,000 students, approximately 92,000, or 67%, are enrolled in French-language schools. However, nearly 10 per cent of these students will leave for the English-language system, primarily between Grades 6 and 7 and Grades 8 and 9. Why? Apparently their parents still believe that an English-language education is better or more relevant than a French-language one.
And yet this is a mistaken perception, one that Ontario’s Ministry of Education and its 12 district school boards have been striving to change for years. It’s a challenge that PAL – which applies to all schools, both elementary and secondary, in Ontario’s French-language school boards – has faced since 2003.
So in 2011, as an expansion of the PAL 2004 policy, the Ministry is releasing PAL for French-language postsecondary education and training. The purpose is to develop a vision of French-language education in Ontario that extends from early childhood education right through to the doctoral level and encompasses occupational training and adult education.
For more information see tcu.gov.on.ca/epep/publications/PAL_Fre_Web.pdf.
