French immersion in New Brunswick
The question I haven’t seen anyone raise up is this—In a bilingual province with French and English (or both) communities everywhere, why can’t kids who were in French immersion simply go to French-speaking schools?
There isn’t a lot of money to go around in this province, nor are people willing to pay higher taxes. Many people are complaining about this recent decision, but I have yet to see a reasonable alternative given the available resources.
Right now, children who want to go to English schools but live in French communities get to ride the bus to school (albeit farther), and vice versa. There’s a big fuss raised about how the provincial government’s cutting early French immersion, but if parents and children feel that it’s such a big deal to be able to speak French at an early age (and there are proven advantages), why can’t they just send their kids to French school? It’s not like they won’t learn any English from home/their friends. Similarly, studies show that kids in English school can be just as proficient in French if they put an effort into learning the language. This isn’t British Columbia; there is no excuse for not having any opportunities to practice French.
Je ne sais pas indeed.
This ClashBang.com article was written by Chris Chu. Tired of privately venting his frustration in vain, Chris decided to share his discontent with the rest of the world.
This entry was posted on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 at 1:29 am and is filed under French immersion, New Brunswick. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 27th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
The answer to this, Chris, is that with the current system, only children who have parents who speak French may be enrolled in French schools. Therefore, I would be able to enroll my children (although that would mean a bus ride of 45 minutes each way), but my parents would not have been able to enroll me.
And if this decision is all about money, then why has Kelly Lamrock stated that the new program will actually be more expensive than the existing one? I think that it is clear that the NB school systems needs work, but I think that evidence shows that EFI should not have been the thing to go.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Well, why don’t they just allow anyone to go to French school then?
March 28th, 2008 at 11:01 am
My guess is lack of funding to French schools? Lack of resources, not enough teachers, too few French schools actually around the province… There is only one for all of SJ and that region… so from Grandbay-Westfield to KV… and also, without help from home, the English-speaking students would bring down the quality of education for actual francophone people for the first little while because a lot of the instruction would have to be in English… there are a lot of logistical problems…