The University of Ottawa will assess over the next few months whether its programs covered by the French Language Services Act really allow Francophones who attend the establishment to study entirely in the language, in the order and within the prescribed time limits.
As part of writing the report Renewal of the Francophonie at the University of Ottawa: a collective responsibilitywhich notably mentioned a Francophobia at university, some participants affirmed that it was not always possible to complete an undergraduate study program solely in French.
This is what the partial designation under the Act, obtained by the university in 2015 and which came into force the following year, provides for. The legal obligation affects all undergraduate programs, with the exception of certain engineering and science programs. “The community would have the lingering impression that it is still difficult in some faculties to complete their studies in French,” reads the report.
Law professor François Larocque, a specialist in language rights, welcomes his university’s initiative. The lawyer notes a dynamism within the cabinet of Sanni Yaya, vice-rector for the international and the Francophonie. The vice-rector’s team, says François Larocque, is in the process of reviewing all the procedures and doing its “due diligence” to verify whether the university is respecting its obligations under the Act.
“We are committed to working tirelessly to correct any gaps and inequalities in the training offer,” Rector Jacques Frémont said in a press release. The university plans to complete the assessment by early 2023 and then make its findings public. Other areas of reflection “in order to better meet the needs of the community [francophone] would also be in progress, according to Sanni Yaya.
Importance of critical mass
According to the participants in the drafting of the report Renewal of the Francophonie at the University of Ottawa: a collective responsibility, the too low number of French-speaking students at the University of Ottawa would explain, among other things, the lack of courses offered in French. French courses with small numbers are canceled permanently or placed in unfavorable time slots, thus creating “a vicious circle which can lead to a reduction in the offer of courses in French”, describes the report.
This vicious circle has been a concern at the university for several years. Joseph Yvon Thériault, former Associate Dean for Research at the Faculty of Science, underlined in the pages of the newspaper The right in 1998 that the Francophone minority should have a “sufficient critical mass to benefit from the environment” of the University of Ottawa. Thus, even if many courses are offered in French, enough French-speaking students must be registered to take them, otherwise the invisibility of the community is accentuated, he wrote.
13,907 Francophones were undergraduate students in fall 2021, compared to 12,591 the previous fall. 37% of the approximately 9,000 international students also identified French as their mother tongue, according to the establishment. But the total number of French-speaking students has decreased year after year, dropping from about 60% in 1971 to almost 32% today.
In December, Patrick Charette, the university’s director of strategic communications, said the administration had “no recruitment target as such” for French-speaking students. “Our goal is to attract as many French-speaking students as possible as long as they meet the admission criteria for their respective programs,” he said.
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.