All right.
Good morning, everyone.
Mr. Chair, Vice-Chairs and members of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, thank you for welcoming us. We are very pleased to have the opportunity this morning to come and speak to you in greater detail about the Université de l'Ontario français, the UOF, and its current needs.
For more than 40 years, hundreds of people, if not thousands, have worked hard to ensure that Ontario has a French-language university. Well, we now have in Ontario a new institution called the Université de l’Ontario français, an institution that is vital for francophone communities, for Ontario as a whole, and for the entire country. This institution was created by the Université de l’Ontario français Act, 2017. This Act gives the UOF a provincial mission that we intend to fulfill as a multi-campus university through affiliations with other postsecondary institutions that offer French-language programs in various regions across the province, as well as through any other form of partnership with these institutions.
The first campus is planned for Toronto, but the Université de Hearst has expressed interest in affiliating with the UOF, and the universities of Saint Paul and Sudbury have also expressed interest in considering some form of association or affiliation. A plan for a feasibility study has been proposed to this end.
Our university will be a magnet for francophones in Central—Southwestern Ontario, who suffer from a glaring lack of postsecondary education in French, all while French-language education at the primary and secondary school levels is growing rapidly—the president of the AFO mentioned this earlier and provided supporting figures—and is known for its excellence.
And, if I may add, French immersion programs are extremely popular with families of all linguistic backgrounds. Central-Southwestern Ontario, which already accounts for one-third of Canada’s population, is experiencing the highest population growth through immigration and inter- and intra-provincial labour mobility. This region will soon represent half of the province's Francophone population.
Moreover, the region is a major centre for innovation and economic development at the national and international levels. In these few words alone, I am sure you already understand all the potential that comes with creating this new French-language university in Toronto, a university that is not only designed in sync with its time, but that also anticipates the future needs of young people and employers.
Over the past year, we have made considerable efforts to establish the conditions required to open the UOF in September 2020. Indeed, just this past November 21st, we published on our website the report of our first year of operation, of which you have a copy. While much work remains to be done by 2020, we are confident of the project’s success.
According to our forecasts, the Université de l’Ontario français will begin with a cohort of 300 students, full-time equivalents, in 2020, reaching about 2,000 students ten years later. Therefore, by 2030, the UOF will reach the size of Bishop's University, the smallest of the three English-language universities in Quebec, after McGill and Concordia, which together total more than 60,000 students, full-time equivalents, enrolled in English-language programs, of which there are more than 10,000 Canadian students from other provinces and more than 12,000 international students.
While every other university grapples with the challenges of adapting to the new conditions of the contemporary world, such as globalization, human migration, cultural diversity, or digital transformations, the UOF has the privilege of starting out from scratch and distinguishing itself from traditional universities.
Created in the 21st century, the UOF has no history except for that of the political project carried out over more than 40 years by the Francophone communities who claim their own institution, governed by and for Francophones. It has no liabilities. It can therefore develop into a forward-thinking institution that can serve as a model for other universities in Ontario, as well as elsewhere in the country and around the world. It is a unique opportunity.
The UOF has designed its academic programming around three major components.
The first and most distinctive component of the UOF is a set of four transdisciplinary academic programs, specialized bachelor's programs that were developed and submitted to the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities on October 1st last.
These programs are not limited to the traditional disciplines normally offered at today's universities. Instead they deal with objects of study that are crucially important problems for society today and that requires contributions from multiple disciplines. We need to have a clear understanding of those problems. The content of these programs has been selected based on the objects of study rather than disciplines and on issues that face our society and that builds on the strengths of the Toronto region, such as human plurality, urban environments, the globalized economy, and digital cultures.
Those are the first programs, in which students will be encouraged to develop the skills they need to understand and analyze those problems, develop a critical approach, imagine appropriate means of intervention and improve human conditions in those sectors.
Our programming includes a second component focusing on professional programs, such as education, social work, law, and health sciences. These programs will be selected to meet the most pressing needs of Francophone communities. Since most of these programs are accredited by professional orders, it takes more time and effort to have them approved. We intend to make them available in collaboration with partner universities that already offer them and that may do so at our university in French, in partnership with us on our Toronto campus.
The first of these programs will be an alternative, part-time bachelor's degree in education, for those who hold another bachelor’s degree, and will also be available to teachers who practise by means of a letter of permission until they can earn their qualifications. This program will enable them to continue working while they study on a part-time basis to acquire the qualifications they need and will thus help remedy the shortage of French-language teachers in Ontario.
The third component focuses on students enrolled in English-language institutions in the region. Of the thousands of students at the 13 universities in Central—Southwestern Ontario whose first language is French, more than 3,000 are enrolled in pharmacology, engineering and computer science. Under reciprocal agreements with nearby universities, we want to enable those students to come and take elective courses in French at the UOF, thereby retaining their language while they pursue a four-year bachelor's degree in English. We will offer them courses with French content so they can improve their language skills for professional or university purposes and feel comfortable using their language when they leave the university. Even if they have studied in English, they will be professionals who are capable of functioning in French when working in the region's Francophone communities.
What also differentiates the UOF from other universities is its pedagogical approach. Pedagogy is very important for our university, and we have adopted an approach that is not merely a process of transmitting knowledge but rather a highly inductive approach in which we take objects of study and work together with professors, other students, the community, society and employers to develop ways of directly observing those problems and reality and find conceptual, theoretical, methodological and professional explanations that we can use to address and solve those problems.
We have adopted a pedagogy that is based on collaboration among students, faculty and society at large and that is based to a large extent on digital technology. We want to offer our programs in co-modality, in other words, in person but also on online platforms that give students the option of participating wherever they may be: on an internship, in the workplace or outdoors.
We have adopted an experiential pedagogy that enables students to acquire experience in the workplace throughout their academic program. This aspect is very important. All the studies show that students who follow this kind of curriculum find jobs upon completion of their university studies. This will also be done thanks in part to an innovative initiative that we proposed and that resulted in the creation of the Francophone Hub of Knowledge and Innovation, which will involve some 15 Francophone organizations across the Toronto region, including Groupe Média TFO, which has 220 employees, and the Centre francophone de Toronto, directed by Mrs. Ngenzebuhoro, which provides health and social services, legal services and immigration assistance.
As a result, some 15 organizations will set up at the university on its permanent campus, where they will help create a Francophone living environment in Toronto while becoming an integral part of UOF's academic mission. We won't be just sharing premises. This form of partnership will be part of the UOF's academic mission in Toronto, where students may complete internships and find jobs.
These organizations will definitely evolve in a constant and positive way in contact with our students and academic research. At the same time, the University will remain in contact with the community throughout its development, which will definitely encourage it to develop in the right direction.
One of these hub partners, the Centre francophone de Toronto, is well positioned to offer services to UOF students in its areas of expertise, which include immigration services for international students, housing, health services, social services, legal advice, etc.
In designing the UOF, we drew on prominent studies from leading organizations such as the OECD, the Conference Board of Canada and the Royal Bank of Canada, among others, all of whom agree that university education must be transformed to adapt to the world of the 21 st century. We have a duty to prepare future generations for a society and a labour market that are undergoing profound change. That's the approach we adopted when we designed our programs.
We also drew on some of the best new universities in the world: for example, Quest University in British Columbia, a private university created in 2007 with tuition fees as high as $35,000. We at the UOF want to offer an education of equal quality but in a public institution that is accessible to all, regardless of one’s financial capacity.
We were also inspired by the University of Bozen-Bolzano, created twenty years ago for the German linguistic minority of Northern Italy, which is ranked among the ten best small universities in the world. Furthermore, we were inspired by Azim Premji University in India, created in 2012 thanks to the generosity of billionaire Azim Premji, who donated his fortune to create a model university to raise the standards of education in his country.