By: Kristin Rushowy Education Reporter, Published on Sun Nov 22 2015
High demand and shortage of teachers force boards to consider changes to the optional program.
Too many students. Not enough teachers.
Struggling to keep up with demand for French Immersion, and how to ensure equal opportunity to its benefits, some Ontario school boards are considering caps on enrolment for the popular program or delaying its start. Others, such as the Peel District School Board, have taken a hard stand and put a 25 per cent cap in place.
In Halton, explosive growth in French Immersion — which now serves 11,000, or 25 per cent of all elementary students — is threatening both the French and English programs.
“We have about 13 of our schools with less than 15 students choosing to remain in the English program,” said newly appointed director of education Stuart Miller, who has been part of an ongoing program viability committee looking at the issues. “We have some really small cohorts in those 13 schools — in some schools there are three or four kids.”
Plus, principals have a “big challenge in recruiting qualified, good quality French Immersion teachers. Our principals have reported that they go through three before they get one. The viability is hard for us, and it’s a challenge for us to sustain a French Immersion program with great uptake, in terms of being able to put really good-quality, fluent French speakers” in classrooms, Miller said.