Quebec unmoved by English universities’ tuition hike pleas

Quebec has indicated it would push forward with a tuition fee hike for out-of-province students despite an offer from the province’s English universities to teach them more French, writes Joe Bongiorno for CBC News.

The offer, which the heads of McGill, Concordia and Bishop’s universities presented on Monday 6 November, proposes several measures, including mandatory French-as-a-second-language courses, which they say will mean their graduates are better equipped to live and work in Quebec. In a statement, the schools said they “recognise that French remains under threat in Quebec, particularly in Montreal, and reaffirm that all universities are the government’s natural allies in the protection, promotion and influence of French in Quebec and elsewhere in the world”.

Later on Monday 6 November, Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry, who announced last month that tuition fees would double for out-of-province students from the rest of Canada – in part to reduce the decline of French in Quebec – said in a statement that her ministry was “delighted” to see the universities recognise the decline of the French language and offer more French instruction. But there were no signs the government would change course.
Full report on the CBC News site