Nearly a quarter of the children who are eligible to attend Quebec’s English-language schools do not attend them. A new report from Statistics Canada reveals attendance rates are lowest in Quebec’s rural areas and suburban locations that are often right next to areas with high English-language school attendance.
The low enrollment numbers in these regions could point to a lack of English-language schools in the area for families, said Étienne Lemyre, analyst with Statistics Canada’s Centre for Demography, who authored the report.
Or it may be a matter of convenience. If the closest school to home is a French school, some parents may opt to send their kids there.
“The way people make decisions about which school that’s right for their child, [is to consider]… the language of instruction… but also is a school close by, is it in the neighborhood,” said Lemyre.
The report, which draws from 2021 census data, aims to inform education workers and the government about where education in English “could be developed, expanded or made more accessible” in the province.
The 2021 census was the first time information was collected on minority official language instruction in primary and secondary schools in Quebec and the rest of Canada.
English-language schools serve as the only official Anglophone-led service in the province for families, said Katherine Korakakis, chair of the English Montreal School Board.
“We don’t control any other institutions,” Korakakis. “Schools… maintain our culture and it’s super important to have that as an Anglophone in Quebec.”
‘No other rally point’
For many parents, choosing a school comes down to wanting their child to have a bilingual education, says Korakakis. At English-language schools, “the aim is to graduate bilingual students.”
According to the 2021 census, 230,000 students out of nearly one million school-aged children were eligible for English-language education in Quebec. Of those, 76 per cent — or 175,000 students — attended them. Children are eligible to enroll in an English-language school if one or both of their parents were educated in an English-language school in Canada.
In Montreal, 81.5 per cent of eligible children attended English-language schools, above the provincial average of 76 per cent.
Lanaudière and Laurentians, two areas north of Montreal, saw a below-average attendance rate of 65 and 66 per cent, respectively. In many cases, the areas with high attendance rates are less than an hour’s drive from municipalities with lower rates.
“Even within the same region, there are municipalities where attendance was much higher and some others where enrollment was lower,” said Lemyre. “The trends are seen at a very local level.”
A municipality in the Laurentians region, Saint-Jérôme, had an English-language school attendance rate that ranged from 65 to 79 per cent. Another municipality just 20 minutes away, Saint-Colomban, registered a rate of less than 49 per cent. The area is 65 km away from Montreal, about an hour’s drive.
In rural areas, there are fewer English-language schools which are dispersed throughout a large geographical area, said Lina Shoumarova, a research associate at the Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network at Concordia University. The organization researches the English-speaking community and services in Quebec.
“Sometimes kids have to travel quite long distances to get to an English-language school, sometimes up to two hours,” said Shoumarova. “This actually can explain … why some parents might make the choice of enrolling their children in a closer school which might be a French language school.”
English-language schools are important in rural communities because they are the only place for the Anglophone community to congregate and get services in English, said Korakakis.
“The second you leave Montreal there is no other rally point in the community,” Korakakis.
Community vitality
English-language schools are a place for Anglophone children to learn more about their identity and community, said Lorraine O’Donnell, a senior research associate and advisor at the Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network.
For example, teachers can invite Anglophone professionals — authors, artists, community leaders — to their classes to meet with students.
Many kids will not have that chance. This is because many English schools have closed, said O’Donnell.
Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language, changed the eligibility requirements for admission into English-language schools, generally limiting it to children whose parents had received English-language schooling in Canada after 1977. As a result of the change, the number of children enrolled in English schools has fallen, causing many schools to close.
“We have fewer places where that is happening and so it can negatively affect the vitality of our English-speaking community, which is a serious thing,” she said.
Without an English school, the Anglophone community is “losing a sense of who we are,” said Korakakis.
For one of its next research projects, Statistics Canada will collect data on why parents in official language minority communities choose to enroll their kids in a minority language school or not, said Lemyre. He expects the results of the survey will help inform reasons behind the regional attendance rates in the newest report.
