“Berri-UQAM: a disaffection that jumps out at the eyes,” headlined an article in the Duty February 11, 2023. Downtown Montreal around UQAM is indeed increasingly visibly decrepit. This article comes after others announcing, for example, the closure of neighborhood institutions, such as Saint-Sulpice and Archambault. Before our eyes, the entire “Latin Quarter”, the neighborhood that flourished and grew with UQAM, is going to shreds.
It is instructive to compare (subjectively) the dynamic that reigns around UQAM with that around Concordia to see that a completely different vibes reigns in the university district a little further west. The question arises: is the decline of the Latin Quarter linked to the decline of the flagship institution of this district, that is to say UQAM?
It was the Parent Commission which, in the mid-1960s, recommended the founding of two new universities in Montreal, one French (UQAM) and the other English (Concordia). Surprisingly, the Commission made this recommendation, even though it was on the French side, not on the English side, that an explosion in university attendance was expected: “While in 1960-1961, the proportion of French-speaking boys 18-21 year olds enrolled in college was less than 10%, we expect it to increase very rapidly […] in French-speaking universities, the number of students will have almost tripled in less than ten years, quintupled in fifteen years, and more than sixfold in twenty years. »
Quebec obviously felt compelled to give Anglophones the same as it gave Francophones, even if the reasons for doing so were weak. This creation of two twin institutions, one French-speaking and the other English-speaking, is a striking illustration of the empire of the ideology of “free choice” of the language of instruction at the post-secondary level, an ideology that has determined for Quebec’s action in this area for decades.
But the rising tide of the baby boom is now ebbing. The demographic weight of Francophones in Quebec is plummeting. The 2021 census showed that Francophones now constitute only 51.5% of the population of the island of Montreal according to the language spoken most often at home. Decline that will continue for the foreseeable future.
The clientele of the universities is distributed, roughly speaking, according to its linguistic origin; Francophones (generally) pursue their studies in French, Anglophones (almost always) in English, while Allophones enroll in universities in French according to their tropism (in Montreal: 70% for “Francotropes” and only 5% for “Anglotropes”). Fewer French speakers in the population therefore automatically leads to a drop in enrollment in French universities.
One can therefore wonder how UQAM is evolving relative to Concordia, while the relative demographic weight of Francophones in Montreal is crashing?
UQAM’s overall student population has fallen from 38,800 students in 1995 to 35,250 in 2022, a decline of 3,550 students or 9.15%. For the same period, that of Concordia rose from 24,844 to 38,744, an increase of 13,900 students or 55.95%.
During the period 1995-2022, three distinct phases marked the UQAM/Concordia dynamic:
Catch-up. From 1995 to 2014, Concordia gradually caught up with UQAM. While UQAM had 13,956 more students than Concordia in 1995, the difference between the two in 2014 was only 6,835 students.
Decline. Beginning in 2014, enrollment at UQAM began to decline rapidly. The fall reached 18.2% over the period 2014-2022. Meanwhile, Concordia continued its near-steady climb through 2020, with a peak followed by a slight decline from 2020 to 2022. This decline may just be a fluctuation in headcount resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. 19.
Downgrading. As of 2018, enrollment at Concordia exceeds that of UQAM. The difference between the two universities, in favor of Concordia, reached 3,494 students in 2022.
The disaffection of the neighborhood around Berri-UQAM is therefore a mirror of the disaffection that reigns at UQAM itself.
As in the case of CEGEPs, “free choice” or competition between the languages of instruction, in a context of the decline of French, is leading and will increasingly lead to the downgrading of universities with French as the language of instruction. . For French Quebec, free choice of the language of instruction at the post-secondary level is a suicidal policy.
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