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speakup

French School District 11 Superintendent Gerald Richard says a Core English program is offered in the schools in his district.

While also acknowledging that programs offered in the Francophone school environment are not comparable to the French Immersion program offered in the Anglophone school environment, Richard nevertheless said he wonders at the wisdom of Education Minister Kelly Lamrock's decision.

"I do not know all the reasons behind why the minister made this decision. Personally, I think it is a step back ... I hope he is right and it is the right decision, because I want this province — the only bilingual province in Canada — to have more students bilingual at the end of high school. But, I have my reservations," said Richard.

Within the Francophone school districts, the region determines if Core English is introduced in Grade 3 or Grade 4 and continues through high school.

"Actually, we do really well on the department of education oral proficiency exams for English. In District 1 and 11, we do very well after three years of English second language instruction," said Richard.

He added many of the students entering the core English program in District 11 already have a base in English, especially in schools like Carrefour Beausoliel in Miramichi.

"The challenge is to have the children really well-prepared in the French language. What we have in place are teachers specializing in literacy who are assigned to come in to schools where there are a lot of kids who are Anglo-dominant, and work with these kids in the early years for a few hours a day.

"It is not a full immersion thing, but we really have a good success rate. Around March of the kindergarten year, the kids are really well-equipped to communicate and understand French quite well," said Richard.

He said Carrefour Beausoliel, which is where there are most of the Anglo-dominant kids, has been doing really well on provincial exams.

"Many of these students at graduation have a choice of attending Anglophone or Francophone-based universities and get accepted in both."

He said if it is different for Districts 1 and 11 because kids coming into the school system already have exposure to English.

"They have Anglophone media, television and so on ... our challenge is to ensure they have a high level of French."