One in four students fail their first French course at CEGEP, reveals a report produced on behalf of the Ministry of Higher Education, which considers that it is “urgent to act” in the matter.
In September 2021, Minister of Higher Education Danielle McCann commissioned a report on the state of French among CEGEP students. Filed a year ago, this report was finally made public on Friday.
In particular, we read that proficiency in French is directly linked to the rate of obtaining a college diploma.
“Students with less than 75% in the single test of French, language of instruction, of 5e secondary school represent more than 40% of new admissions to the francophone college network since 2010,” write the authors of the report.
Among these students who are weaker in French, the rate of obtaining a college diploma was 44% in 2016. In comparison, it was 84% among those who obtained more than 75% on this test.
However, in the last ministerial exams of 2022, the results of this unique test fell almost everywhere in Quebec among students in 5e secondary.
In Montreal, for example, only 59.1% of students at the Center de services scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys obtained a passing grade last June. This rate was 72.9% three years earlier.
The authors recommend that, whatever the subject they teach, teachers pay attention to the quality of French, from primary school to university.
They also write that despite “the omnipresence of electronic writing”, “we must admit that its use for educational purposes is not yet exploited to its full potential in the school environment and that students still produce a lot handwritten texts in class.
The report is co-authored by Godeliva Debeurme, retired professor from the University of Sherbrooke, Marie-Claude Boivin, full professor at the University of Montreal, and Lison Chabot, retired director of studies from the Cégep de Beauce-Appalaches.
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