GET THE LATEST: Out-of-province students will now have to pay $12,000 to study in Quebec
“disastrous.” “silly.” “Simply impossible.”
McGill University’s vice-dean, Fabrice Labeau, did not mince his kind words when responding to a media report that Quebec would not only raise tuition fees for non-Quebec students, but would also require 80 per cent of students attending English universities to reach level 6 in French language proficiency. .
These are the proposals currently on the table, according to a report published by La Presse newspaper on Wednesday.
Quebec Higher Education Minister Pascal Dery’s press attaché did not confirm or deny the newspaper’s report, but said the minister would make an announcement on Thursday.
“I think it’s important to understand that for 80% of people outside Quebec to reach level 6 in French is absolutely unrealistic. It doesn’t make sense,” Labeau said in an interview with CTV News.
The three English universities in Quebec (McGill, Concordia and Bishop) over the weekend made a second counter-offer to the government to amend its plans that included increases in tuition fees for various specializations and the Excellence Program with the aim of guaranteeing 40 per cent of tuition fees. of non-French-speaking students achieve level six, or intermediate level, in French after graduation.
But now the government appears to be redoubling its efforts and wants the threshold to be higher than 80 percent.
“If you are, for example, a student from Germany or Spain who has no idea about French and you come to Montreal, the work it takes to get from there to sixth level is 240 hours of learning French.” [classes]. This is equivalent to 18 college credits, more than one semester, plus what you do at university, Labo explained.
“So, if you’re thinking about competition, and the same student from Germany or from Spain is looking at possibilities in Canada, and you’re looking at McGill, the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, someone will tell them, you can go, we want you here, but you’re going to take an extra semester to graduate.” Because you’re going to have to learn French. And that gives you a sense of the fact that if you’re going to go in these very large numbers and you’re targeting this international population [that doesn’t have] Too much pre-existing French, and you’re in trouble. It is simply impossible to do. “The idea of spreading that means to us that students will stop coming.”
McGill fears the concession clause poses a greater threat to the university than the tuition fee increase Quebec announced on October 13. Instead of doubling tuition fees for non-Quebec students from about $9,000 to $17,000, as previously announced, the government will reportedly go ahead and increase them by about 33 per cent to about $12,000.
Labo said trying to predict the impact on English universities’ bottom lines is difficult, but one thing is certain is that “an announcement like this would be catastrophic in terms of the impact it would have on universities like McGill.”
The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), a coalition representing about 40 English-speaking groups, also opposed the latest proposals, calling them “clear existential threats” to the three universities in Quebec that attract the most students from the rest of Canada.
“If the government were trying to devise a plan to starve Quebec’s English-speaking universities out of existence, it would look very much like this,” QCGN President Eva Ludwig said in a press release on Wednesday.
Sylvia Martin LaForge, general manager of QCGN, added: “The government has provided absolutely no evidence that the presence of McGill and Concordia students in the heart of the city center contributes to the Englishness of the city.” “But when Prime Minister François Legault and Language Minister Jean-François Roberge complain about hearing too much English on the streets of Montreal, this is clearly enough to create a policy that could kill or seriously damage many good institutions.”
If Derry decides to go ahead with the government’s plans, McGill is determined to sit down with her and try to convince her to reverse course, especially with the university already seeing the first signs of a financial hit.
“Moody’s is reviewing our credit scores at McGill with a view to lowering them, so our cost of money or borrowing money will be higher at McGill very soon with these types of guidance,” Labo said.
“So we’re already seeing these effects.”
The province of Quebec has recently announced its plans to implement stricter French language requirements on English universities, sparking a heated debate among academics and policymakers. This move is seen as a push to further promote and protect the French language in a predominantly English-speaking province. Proponents argue that this measure is necessary to preserve the cultural and linguistic identity of Quebec, while critics argue that it could hinder the academic freedom and diversity of educational institutions. This decision has raised significant concerns and has brought the issue of language rights and regulations to the forefront of public discourse.