ACTION PLAN
2005-06 to 2008-09
UNDER THE
CANADA-ONTARIO AGREEMENT ON MINORITY LANGUAGE EDUCATION, SECOND OFFICIAL LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION AND THE ENHANCEMENT OF FRENCH-LANGUAGE POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION
(2005-06 to 2008-09) ONTARIO MINISTRY OF TRAINING, COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

MARCH 2006

PREAMBLE

Introduction

The Canadian and Ontario governments are entering into a four year agreement to work in partnership towards the implementation of additional measures to enhance the French-language postsecondary education opportunities in Ontario.

These measures will be implemented in the context of the Government of Canada's Action Plan on Official Languages, the Pan Canadian Protocol for Agreements for Minority-Language Education and Second-Language Instruction 2005-2006 to 2008-2009, and the Ontario Government Reaching Higher Plan for postsecondary education and will build upon each respective government's strong tradition of collaborative approach to build Ontario's French-language capacity in the postsecondary education system.

Ontario's approach, objectives and strategic priorities for enhancing French-language postsecondary education
(2005-06 to 2008-09)

Over the past three decades, Ontario has demonstrated a strong commitment to building a quality French-language postsecondary education system by providing its colleges and universities with ongoing funding to recognize the incremental costs of minority language education.  This commitment has been supplemented with three successive Federal-provincial agreements to build up the province's French-language colleges. The ongoing financial support to bilingual universities and to colleges has proven successful in building French-language capacity in Ontario. Participation of Franco-ontarians in postsecondary studies has improved and graduates are now increasingly active in the workplace providing services to their communities inside and outside Ontario.

However, there remain some signs of vulnerability of the community and of the institutions, as demonstrated by recent studies confirming a dramatic increase in the assimilation rate of the Francophone population.  In addition, French-language colleges and some bilingual universities are experiencing ongoing challenges to remain viable. The Ontario government remains committed to provide additional support to French-language colleges and to bilingual universities in order to improve French-language postsecondary education in Ontario.
With the 2004-05 Canada-Ontario Agreement on Targeted Measures to Enhance French-language Postsecondary Education that included the bilingual universities for the first time, the Canadian and Ontario governments established a new approach to further develop the French-language postsecondary education capacity over a five year period.

Within its 2005 Budget, the Ontario government announced the Reaching Higher Plan, a $6.2 billion cumulative investment by 2009-10, which focuses on achieving more access, higher quality and excellence, and better results and accountability for the publicly funded postsecondary education system. The comprehensive plan is a multi prong strategy that covers several strategic areas of interventions that will benefit the French-language postsecondary education as a component of the whole system.

But more specifically, the plan includes an Access and Opportunity strategy which is designed, among other things, to provide better access and improve participation in French-language postsecondary education and to improve the quality of French-language postsecondary education and the students' learning experience within the French-language postsecondary education system.

"Part of this funding will be used to help French-language colleges and bilingual universities foster a more vibrant Francophone postsecondary education community in Ontario." 2005 Budget p.15

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Ontario's French-language Population

The face of Ontario's French-speaking population changed dramatically between 1991 and 2001. The Census found that Ontario's Francophone population is in steady decline, aging and becoming increasingly diverse (with newcomers for whom French is not their first language).

Bilingual universities and French-language colleges continue to face distinct challenges including:

• reaching out to diverse clienteles that are dispersed over vast territories (e.g. French-language graduates, immersion stream graduates, newcomers and adult learners);
• higher cost of catering to these clientele with an attractive range of quality programs and services;
• responding to changing socio-economic and labour market needs associated with dramatic changes in Ontario's francophone geographical demography; and
• a limited range of French-language programs offered by the institutions which, in turn, limits the choice for French-language students.

For Francophones, the low participation in higher education of French-language students in their first language, as well as immersion stream graduates in their second language is associated with the limited spectrum of programs and credentials (as well as the inconsistent availability) of French-language institutions or points of access across Ontario. These limitations contribute to the assimilation of Franco-Ontarians through linguistic transfer at the post-secondary level. The inconsistent accessibility to French-language programming across Ontario is a large contributor to the assimilation of Francophones into English language programming at the postsecondary level. In addition, the aging of the Francophone population in Ontario has a potential adverse effect on French-language postsecondary enrolment and vitality of French-language or bilingual institutions. The Francophone population is changing with respect to its geography (becoming more dispersed) as well as the increasing diversity of its population (growing population of Francophones born outside of Canada) which creates further challenges to postsecondary institutions trying to draw on this shrinking, diverse and dispersed group of Ontarians.

Ontario's Action Plan alignment with Canada's Action Plan

Building on what was agreed to through Canada-Ontario agreements on regular and targeted measures in 2004-05, Ontario aligned its four priority objectives to implement the strategies outlined in its four-year action plan, and expects to observe the four following results:

• Enlarged continuum of quality programs across the range of institutions;
• Increased postsecondary opportunities for French-speaking population in the Centre-Southwestern Ontario;
• Enhanced long-term financial and educational viability of existing institutions; and
• Expanded English-speaking participation in French-language postsecondary experiences.

These four expected results are well aligned with the Action Plan for Official Languages (hereinafter called "Canada's Action Plan") by which the Government of Canada (hereinafter called "Canada") has identified minority-language education and second official-language instruction as key priorities for providing new momentum to Canada's linguistic duality. Canada has set the objectives to increase the proportion of eligible students enrolled in French-language minority schools to 80 percent by 2013 and to double the proportion of students 15 to 19 years of age with a functional knowledge of their second official-language, also by 2013.

Accordingly, Canada has established a distinct targeted funding envelope for minority-language education for francophone communities and another for second official-language instruction.  One of the principal components that will enable provinces and territories to achieve these objectives is to increase the access to postsecondary institutions, by expanding the range of French-language programs in Francophone or bilingual colleges and universities, and/or by providing additional opportunities for French as a second language students to pursue postsecondary education in their second official-language.

These objectives have been reflected in the Protocol for Agreements for Minority-Language Education and Second-Language Instruction (2005-2006 to 2008-2009) to which Ontario agreed in November 2005.

The Ontario government plans to harmonize its allocation of regular, additional and complementary funds for postsecondary education in a systematic way that ensures, for each allocation, to contribute to the implementation of components of a strategy and/or the achievement of some of the expected results.

Ontario's Additional Strategies

In particular, as highlighted in the attached action plan, Ontario's strategies for better access and improved participation in French-language colleges and bilingual universities as well as for improved quality of French-language colleges and bilingual universities programs and their students' learning experience are positioned to meet the federal strategic priorities.

The proposed projects that were retained for funding by MTCU under the additional strategies are to provide the capacity to expand significantly the range of programs and services through a longer term development strategy for the entire postsecondary sector. This is beyond what can be accomplished, on an ongoing basis, through the programs funded by our increased regular funds such as French-language College Network Support Fund, Éduc-Action or FODEFAD, for example, and with the new literacy initiative that will serve as an enabler to the Reaching Higher plan for Francophones.

Of a non-duplicative nature, the new additional strategies to be developed and implemented by the French-language colleges and the bilingual universities are targeting specific clienteles (adults, skills learners, newcomers, first generation for example) and new program areas (e.g. health, human services, technology and sciences) or activity level in order to reach out to the student group that would not have, in other circumstances, either remained / succeeded in , or even considering attending French-language postsecondary education. They include innovative outreach strategies, development /adaptation of new material, program and services and completion of programs not offered in French.

For French as a minority language (FML) additional strategies, the following two strategic priorities are the most closely related to Ontario's plan:

• Support for access to and enrolment in minority-language education and second-language instruction at all levels of instruction (3.2.1.8);
• Consolidation and development of educational services in the language of the minority (3.2.1.1).

For French as a second language (FSL) additional strategies, Ontario's plan is aligned with the following federal strategic priority:

• Support for access to and enrolment in minority-language education and second-language instruction at all levels of instruction(3.2.1.8).

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Ontario's Complementary Measures

In order to complement the additional strategies and to ensure the success of the longer term developmental and improvement strategies, the sector has identified the need to proceed with specialized investments in excellence centres, facilities and equipment for mediatization, specialized labs, skills/trades institutes, computer technologies for libraries and research initiatives, and development literacy services.

All these complementary measures are aligned with three federal government priority areas:

• Development of Postsecondary education (5.8.2.1)
• Capital projects and promotion of research in minority-language education and second-language instruction (5.8.2.2)
• Program growth and quality and cultural enrichment in minority language education at all levels of instruction (5.8.2.3)

French-language Postsecondary Education Reality

The Ministry of Education noted that in 2003-04 the French-language school system in Ontario lost a total of 31,000 students from kindergarten to Grade 12. Most of these students transferred to the English-language school system.  A lack of opportunity to pursue postsecondary studies in French was cited as one reason for the transfer.

Another significant loss of French-language students is experienced between Grade 12 and postsecondary education. In 2003, of the total French-language student population going to college, only 57 percent chose to attend a French-language college. Between 1999 and 2003 French-language college Full-time Equivalent (FTE) student enrolment decreased by 14 percent. In 2004-05, there were 4,520 FTEs enrolled in the two French-language colleges.

In 2004-05 there were 13,538 Francophone students enrolled in all Ontario universities. Of the total French-language population going to university, 78 percent chose to attend a bilingual university with the remaining 22 percent choosing to attend an English-language university.

The two French-language colleges struggle to offer a reasonable range of programs and services and the six bilingual universities offer a limited spectrum of undergraduate and graduate programs entirely in French. For example, there are 52 unique programs in French-language colleges compared to 338 in English colleges.  There are 26 different training programs in French-language colleges compared to 111 in English-language colleges. There are approximately 150 university programs offered entirely in French but programming areas of study that remain underserved are Sciences/Technology, Health Sciences, Human and Community Services.

There is inconsistent accessibility to French-language programming across Ontario. The eastern part of the province is better served than the Northern and Central Southwest. The Greater Toronto Area has a Francophone population estimated at approximately 100,000 yet there is a very small range of programs available in French-language at the college and university levels in the region served by Collège Boréal and Glendon College (York University).

In addition, both colleges and universities continue to encounter difficulty with

• recruiting faculty and acquiring French-language and culturally appropriate materials;
• receiving appropriate levels of federal funding (lower now than the 1992-93 level).

Measuring Progress

Progress will be monitored on an ongoing basis as institutions are forwarding to the Ministry their various accountability documents (annual report, business plan and strategic plan), the Key Performance Indicators are published annually, reports on enrolment are audited annually and institutions are entering into accountability agreements with the Ministry and submitting annual reports on special projects funded through federal-provincial agreements.

Summary of Key Results for Addressing Gaps for Francophones

• Improved communication and priority setting between Francophone stakeholders and government through the establishment of the Advisory Committee on French-language Postsecondary Education
• Increased number of new postsecondary university and college programs in French
• Increased numbers of Francophone students participating in French-language programs (both college and university) due to new programming, enhanced outreach and development of French-language learning materials
• Increased data and research that will help identify future directions for French-language programming and services.

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Consultations

Institutions delivering French-language postsecondary education and French-language literacy submitted multi-year proposals to MTCU in 2003-04 in preparation for the new round of federal-provincial negotiations on minority-language education and second-language instruction; MTCU reviewed the proposals, and conducted its internal analysis. MTCU has discussed strategies with the Consortium des Universités de la Francophonie Ontarienne (CUFO) and French-language colleges in various meetings over 2003-04 and 2004-05. These discussions supported the preparation of the 2004-05 Action plan on targeted measures.

In 2004, the Ontario government commissioned the former Ontario Premier, the Honourable Bob Rae, to study Ontario's Postsecondary Education system. Its report published in February 2005 included specific recommendations to address the need of the French-language postsecondary education, based on briefs forwarded by institutions and the consultation process followed by the Rae Panel.

Between 2004 and 2006, MTCU continued its discussions with French-language services providers and analysed their submissions to the Rae Panel. MTCU worked collaboratively with CUFO on the implementation of their contribution to the 2004-05 action plan to enhance FL postsecondary education. The ministry retained the services of a consultant to coordinate research and facilitate the discussions through the MTCU-French-language colleges working group on the current state of the French-language college education in Ontario.

Also, an initiative funded through the FL college network support fund of the Regular funds, the Strategic Planning of FL Colleges Programs and Services, composed of 2 FL Academic VPs with their staff, has been in regular contact with MTCU staff.

More recently, MTCU established the Advisory Committee on French-language Postsecondary Education which held its inaugural meeting on January 26, 2006. This committee will address the specific needs of the Ontario Francophone postsecondary community and also assist government to make informed policy, funding and operational decisions that would further develop French-language postsecondary programs and services.

MTCU's 2005-06 to 2008-09 Action Plan on Additional Strategies

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