McGill and Concordia are proposing to introduce mandatory French as a second language courses to avoid a drastic increase in tuition fees for Canadian students outside Quebec.
Together with Bishop’s, the two English-speaking institutions presented their counteroffer on Monday during a meeting with Prime Minister François Legault.
With the presidents of McGill, Concordia and Bishop universities.
We discussed ways to reverse the decline of French in Quebec. pic.twitter.com/qoffoX0hH1— François Legault (@francoislegault) November 6, 2023
“Under these new initiatives, the Universities of Concordia and McGill, in recognition of the linguistic diversity specific to Montreal, commit to introducing compulsory courses and activities in French as a second language within three years in order to effectively support “professional integration within the metropolis”. , write the higher education institutions.
Up to 40%
They add that they want to “significantly” improve the offering of French as a second language courses for non-Quebec resident Canadian students and non-French-speaking international students, all in collaboration with the Quebec government.
However, the document does not specify whether the mandatory courses would apply to all non-French-speaking students outside Quebec.
With these measures and other initiatives, English-speaking universities aim to ensure that “at least 40% of non-French-speaking students enrolled in bachelor’s programs reach French level 6 of the Quebec scale while obtaining their diploma”.
Stage 6 is an intermediate stage in which a person can write a short text or have a conversation about the general needs of daily life.
Avoid a climb
In return, McGill, Concordia and Bishop want to maintain the current tuition fees of about $9,000 imposed on Canadian students outside Quebec.
Instead, the Legault government announced its intention to double that and increase it to around $17,000, arguing that Quebec taxpayers would pay to educate students in English who then leave the province.
As for the minimum rate of $20,000 provided by Quebec for foreign students, the three university institutions propose to examine “alternative solutions” to this measure, which aims to transfer the profits generated by the English-language network to the French-language institutions .
McGill and Concordia universities had not responded to our requests for details at the time of publication.
The Office of the Minister of Higher Education says that discussions continue and the desire to find a solution to the unique reality of Bishop’s in Estrie is reiterated. “We welcome their desire to make English-speaking students French. This is a step in the right direction. Now we remain steadfast in our principles: it is not up to Quebec taxpayers to fund the education of thousands of Canadian students outside Quebec,” Minister Pascale Déry said in a written statement.
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