Sure. We'll give this a go again. Good old technology.
Financial reporting alone, however accurate or complete, does not measure the complete success of FSL programs across Canada, and we'd like to encourage the adoption of an outcomes-based approach in the next round of our OLEP agreements, one using real and measurable targets. Again, our experience is that in the past our OLEP agreements have not leveraged federal funding as successfully as they might have, and we believe it is time for the federal government to provide greater leadership in setting meaningful targets.
For example, only one agreement, the one with Ontario, sets as a goal an increase in the number of students with learning disabilities. No agreement addresses the problems that immigrant children have in accessing French as a second language programs.
Canadian Parents for French asks that the next agreements encourage the development of policies that will provide students with learning difficulties and immigrant students fair access to French as a second language programs.
Also, while past agreements have sought to maintain or increase the number of students in FSL programs with kindergarten to grade 12 retention rates of roughly 36% for FI and 6% for core French, aggressive targets increasing student retention should be a feature of new agreements.
Canadian Parents for French recommends that all OLEP agreements should encourage policies that address the issue of retention of students in FSL programs.
Canada's official languages roadmap has created a vision for the future of the official languages and for bilingualism in Canada. We believe that the agreements are tools that can make that vision into a reality.
CPF recommends that all OLEP agreements establish measures to assess the effectiveness of FSL programs, and upon the closing of these agreements in 2017 a report be drawn up illustrating the successes of these programs and a list of best practices for our future agreements.
Thank you.