French teacher shortage cause for worry: DSFM

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This article was published 06/11/2021 (1456 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

New numbers from a pair of professional teaching organizations paint a potentially troubling picture for French-speaking students in Manitoba and across the country.

According to the dual study from the Canadian Association for Immersion Professionals (ACPI) and the Canadian Association for Second Language Teachers (CASLT), which was released on Thursday, 42 per cent of Canadian schools offering French immersion programs are currently experiencing a teacher shortage.

In Manitoba specifically, this study revealed that 38 per cent of French Immersion schools across the province are enduring some vacancies.

This represents a shortage of between 1,000 and 1,400 full-time equivalent French immersion teachers throughout the country, while the estimated shortage for French-as-a-second language teachers is around 7,000 to 8,000 full-time equivalent positions.

ACPI and CASLT came up with these numbers by conducting a literature review, interviews and an online survey last spring.

The sample size for this study includes 934 schools from all provinces and territories, which represents about 26 per cent of Canadian schools offering French immersion programming overall.

While Division scolaire franco-manitobaine (DSFM) schools are not French immersion, Supt. Alain Laberge told the Sun on Friday that the results of this study still concern him.

After all, both DSFM and school divisions offering French immersion recruit from the same talent pool, which means that this kind of French-language teaching shortage impacts them both.

Laberge said this is made worse by the fact that DSFM, which was first formed in 1994, is experiencing some generational growing pains as the division continues to expand.

“We have more students coming in and after 27 years of existing we have more teachers retiring,” he said. “So there’s a lot of people out, a lot of students in and not a lot of teachers available.”

The DSFM superintendent said this teacher shortage is especially prevalent in rural communities, including Westman institutions located in St. Lazare (École Saint-Lazare) and Laurier (École Jours de Plaine), where even substitute instructors are hard to come by.

“I think we only have eight postings as of this morning that are still available. Six of them are in rural areas,” he said.

“Eight is not bad, but day-in, day-out, our principals, this year especially, have to be in the classrooms because we lack numbers for substitute teachers.”

In order to close this gap, Laberge believes that post-secondary training and recruitment practices need to be more flexible, especially for teachers who specialize in topics outside of languages.

“Could we facilitate a transition for wood workers, metal workers, mathematicians and give them a subject specialty in our schools without having to go for two to four years at university?” he asked.

Laberge said it is especially important to solve this teacher shortage over the next couple of years, since DSFM’s plans to build a new K-12 francophone school in Brandon are finally moving forward.

“We learned a month ago that the zoning was not a problem anymore. It went in front of the city, so we’re at the design phase,” he said.

“It’s going well and we have high hopes that we can begin, in a year from now, to dig.”

Currently, Brandon-area parents looking to enrol their children in a fully French education must send them to DSFM’s École La Source, which is located roughly 30 kilometres away at CFB Shilo.

Meanwhile, the Brandon School Division currently manages four institutions that offer French immersion programming.

This includes École Harrison, École New Era School, École O’Kelly School and École secondaire Neelin High School.

On Friday afternoon, BSD Supt. Mathew Gustafson told the Sun that the division isn’t contending with any French-language teacher vacancies right now, having secured a good supply of immersion instructors early on in last year’s hiring process.

However, Gustafson also mentioned that BSD officials will continue to fine-tune their recruitment strategies and be on the lookout for the next generation of French immersion teachers just in case.

“That means continuing to work with the universities on pre-service teachers coming into [our schools] as they graduate, but also people who maybe moved into the area recently who have the ability to teach in French immersion,” he said.

To read this new French-language teacher shortage study in its entirety, visit acpi.ca.

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