Thank you.
I wish you a good afternoon.
First, English public schools in Quebec must be given the necessary support to maintain and expand access to and delivery of French second language programs to students across Quebec, whatever the student's level of potential. Our schools must meet the challenge, all the while delivering on their mandate to serve and support the English language, culture, and history that give meaning to the constitutional underpinnings that ultimately define our existence.
One of the tools we must continue to count on is federal government support through the federal entente with the provinces and its territories on minority language and education, and second language instruction. In this context QESBA signals satisfaction with the recent signing of a renewed five-year entente. We now wait the important signature of a parallel Canada-Quebec agreement.
The statistics tell the story about why French immersion matters. Our parents, our children have insisted upon it. In 2006, 66% of our elementary students were enrolled in one given French immersion model. Five years later that number had increased to 83%. In secondary schools 35% were enrolled in immersion or some form of intensive French second language program.
They were core French, enriched French and French as the language of instruction.
Five years later, that percentage has already doubled.
Second, early intervention in second language instruction works. In fact, the research on this point is irrefutable. Though some provincial jurisdictions have argued otherwise, we would nonetheless insist on this point. Our nine English school boards in Quebec together can point to an average high school success rate of about 80%. That is quite amazing. That represents the target set by the previous Quebec government for the year 2020 in their partnership agreement between the MELS and the respective boards.
Our graduation rate must continue to improve, but we would tell you that one of the factors contributing to its success is our student-centred and differentiated approach to learning, as well as our extra efforts on second language instruction. Our approach leads many of our graduating students to actually outperform their francophone counterparts in end-of-cycle and/or ministry mother-tongue examinations. Furthermore, many see their English mother-tongue writing competencies improve as a result of their immersion experience.
French second language education in Quebec's English public schools is supported by the active involvement of and consultation with our parents. Parents are demanding a range of FSL—French second language—programs and models at the elementary and secondary levels, which is sometimes difficult and impractical given our vastly dispersed schools and low population density, mainly on the Quebec mainland. But the fact remains that parents must be part of the portrait of our students if our students are going to graduate, bilingual and bi-literate, with the ability and the wish to function well as citizens both in French and in English.
Thank you.