THE PAST WENT THAT-A-WAY: ENROLMENT IN ENGLISH EDUCATION IN QUEBEC

Abstract

What is the evidence that education for the English-speakers of Quebec is any worse off than that for the French-speaking population? Contrary to the angry suspicions of those who feel threatened by the directions recently taken by the politics of the province, there is little sign that the Quebec government has been anything but scrupulously fair to all concerned in its educational action, as far as it lies in its power to be so. Nevertheless, as Donald Burgess explains, the projections for English schools for the next few years show a hair-raising and far steeper decline in enrolments than the government seems to have anticipated, and no foreseeable chance of recovery beyond that under the present terms of admission. The chief cause of this reduction, to what appears certain to be a radical and permanent change in its relative strength, is the recent flight from the province of large numbers of the next child-bearing generation of English speakers - a result of the socio-political climate and arising indirectly, rather than directly, from the actions of the governments of Quebec.