‘I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t believe in it’: N.B. education minister defends new French immersion program

N.B. education minister talks French immersion Stephanie Tsicos speaks with New Brunswick Education Minister Bill Hogan on the province’s new French immersion program.

New Brunswick’s education minister is defending the province’s new proposed French immersion program, which is set to begin September 2023.

In an interview with CTV News Thursday night, Education Minister Bill Hogan said the goal of the new program is to ensure all Anglophone students have an opportunity to reach at least a minimum level of conversational French.

Data from Statistics Canada indicates New Brunswick is 35 per cent bilingual. Reform is necessary, Hogan said, because less than half of high school graduates in the anglophone sector are able to speak French at a conversational level.

“For those that want to go on and continue to specialize in it, we expect to see them reach advanced, advanced plus, and hopefully superior,” said Hogan.

Under the proposed program, students in kindergarten to Grade 1 will spend half their day in "exploratory learning" in French and the other half being taught in English for subjects such as math, reading and writing. Subjects such as science and social studies could be learned in French.

Students currently in Grade 1 and up will continue with their program, rather than adjusting to a new one, according to Hogan.

“We’re not looking at a big system change, we’re just looking at kindergarten and Grade 1, and I think that’s a big difference,” he said.

While the plan, which cuts the time elementary students spend learning in French, has prompted criticism from some parents, Hogan noted his family will also be impacted by the shift.

“I’m a father and a grandfather and I have two grandchildren in Grade 1 immersion and I have another grandchild that will be starting our new framework, and I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t believe in it,” he said.

Even though officials say the program only expects a minimum of being able to hold basic conversation, they add some students will exceed that level.

“I certainly expect the majority of our students to far exceed that level and to graduate with a much higher level of French and with the opportunity to specialize even further,” said Hogan.

Down the road, students who are interested in specializing other subjects in French, such as math or science, will have the opportunity to do so, he said.

New Brunswick, with its Official Languages Act, is the only province in Canada where both French and English are official languages.

With files from The Canadian Press