Describing it as part of an “all-out offensive” to promote the French language in Quebec and “halt the decline in Montreal,” a Legault government task force will seek to increase tuition fees for foreign or out-of-province students attending English-language universities in Quebec.
“We’re fed up with managing a decline, of protecting the language, of slowing the erosion of the language, these are defensive terms. It’s time to regain ground,” Quebec French-language minister Jean-François Roberge said in an interview with La Presse. “If we want to change the linguistic profile of Montreal, to stop the decline in Montreal, we must focus on the question of rebalancing university networks.”
Roberge said that while 80 per cent of Quebec students attend French-language universities, only half of the 32,000 foreign or out-of-province students who study here do so as well.
“There are a lot of people who come to Quebec, who attend an English-language university and who very often express themselves in the English language on a daily basis.”
The task force also intends to table legislation that would oblige online giants such as Spotify and Netflix to make Quebec-produced content “more visible.”
Roberge’s announcement comes a little over a week after the Coalition Avenir Québec suffered a stinging defeat at the hands of the Parti Québécois in a byelection in the Quebec City riding of Jean-Talon.
A Hallmark of happy countries isn’t a mercenary post-secondary education system.
‘Offensive’ is right. But the Right usually is.
Sorry, I don’t understand what this means? The only military university in Québec is federally run; and any foreign students are on exchange from other military schools, not mercenaries.
Québec has three tiers of pricing: Québec student ($), Canadian student ($$), and foreign student ($$$$).
Currently France and Belgium have agreements to allow their students to receive Canadian student pricing. The current strategy is to increase the number of Francophonie nations that receive Canadian pricing. I don’t know what the mechanics behind that are.
The “unbalance” is that Anglo students are 25% total population, but has 38% of the foreign students. A balanced profile would see the Anglo universities having 25% of the foreign student population. The current lever targetted is increasing the number of francophone foreign students (as mentioned, adding more preferential pricing for other Francophonie nations)
“Mercenary”, as an English-language adjective, can also mean “motivated only by money; money-grubbing”.
Ahh, fair enough. Still, the motivations of higher education are not directly relevant to this context.
I’m also pretty sure Québec is is only province with free tuition for college education; that must affect the undergraduate profit formulas and motivations to some extent. Cuts a year off most undergrads at a minimum.