Recently on The Trainman Report (our super local NDG news podcast) we talked about the upcoming school board elections and I learned some nifty stuff.
Joe Ortona told us how The English Montreal School Board was able to secure a 95.9% graduation rate (though adjusted for some factors like students who moved in the year, it’s higher). Meanwhile the French schools are facing a significantly lower % of graduates. I believe he said the literacy rates in French schools were as low as 70%.
That means 3 out of 10 kids are not reading anywhere near a level that allows for critical thinking.
When you consider all the language politics, this is a little concerning.
French news and English news feels different here
Sometimes you’ll see politicians speak and it’s like the narrative told by French media sources and what they say in the English ones are completely different.
Apparently anglophones in Quebec are better at critical thinking so we’re less susceptible to government brainwashing. We’re also the linguistic minority group. So it’s a bit scary that the French majority lacks the same quality of education.
In my conspiracy theorist mind the Quebec government, is by design, creating a system where the majority gets siloed away from global events.
Still the numbers may be a bit misrepresented.
Bill 101 means all immigrants must send their kids to French schools
There’s a large segment of the French school system that is made up of people who don’t speak French as a first language.
The official term for people who have another primary language than English or French is an allophone. This community is largely made of immigrants from all over the world. You could literally come here from England and your kid still has to go to French school.
Chances are if your children are teenagers, their performance is going to suffer as they are forced into a French system.
This is a good example of stats maybe being misleading in nature.
Shoutout to Joseph Lalla for the insight.
The unequal educational opportunities are probably hurting Quebec
If you are born here and speak French, you’ll probably do alright in the French schools.
Chances are, if you are in Montreal, you also learned English because you want to be tapped into the litness of life. The future of Quebec is definitely bilingual but are we creating a dynamic where immigrants are held back?
Already there is a big challenge for people who don’t speak French, but by forcing people who haven’t learned the language into a French system as a teenager, may fuck up some cognitive skills.
This is something I’d like to delve more into at a later time but is interesting enough to share.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone