Manitoba ramps up efforts to recruit French-speaking teachers Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
By: Maggie Macintosh Posted: 6:43 PM CDT Tuesday, Jul. 4, 2023

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This article was published 04/07/2023 (1194 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s new “all hands on deck” approach to staffing French classrooms with fluent and trained teachers — which is not always possible at present due to a chronic shortage of professionals — will rely on efforts to recruit local teens to pursue teaching.

Nearly two years after beginning consultations on challenges related to enlisting and retaining bilingual teachers, the education department has released a road map to address the growing demand for francophone and immersion education.

“It should’ve happened 20 years ago — if not more than that,” Education Minister Wayne Ewasko said Tuesday. “But I can’t reverse the clock so we’re getting going with this and we’re going to continue working with all those education partners, K-12 and post-secondary partners to get this done.”

Ewasko noted enrolment in the Division scolaire franco-manitobaine has grown 15 per cent over the last decade while French immersion programs, which are currently offered in just over half of all public school divisions, have surged 23 per cent.

It is not uncommon for DSFM schools, especially in rural and northern areas, to hire French-speaking community members to fill teaching positions via temporary certifications.

In a bid to address the issue, the province’s latest strategy involves encouraging more people to enter a career teaching in French, scaling up university training seats, updating certification practices that support newcomers, and bolstering orientation for early career educators.

“The main strategy has to be building through the draft. The students we need are in our own classrooms. We just need to get them to Grade 12 in French and then we need them to do their teachable in French and then do a (bachelor of education),” said Peter Dorrington, vice-president, academic and research, at l’Université de Saint-Boniface, home to Manitoba’s only francophone teachers college.

Roughly 62 per cent of members of the Class of 2023 who entered kindergarten in either a francophone or immersion classroom, stuck with it until Grade 12.

Dorrington said language insecurity is a huge issue that contributes to the dropout rate and requires French teachers of all kinds to spend a great deal of time encouraging and building confidence among students.

While acknowledging it’s a time-intensive project, focusing on local students to grow the French teaching workforce is critical because they understand the context of minority language education in Manitoba and are more likely to want to stick around after graduation, he added.

The province is anticipated to announce an expansion of USB’s education program in the coming weeks.

Over the last seven years, USB has doubled its average admissions into the program. The francophone university has gone from accepting roughly 35 teacher candidates every year to roughly 80.

Despite the welcome expansion, superintendent Alain Laberge said it continues to be a challenge to find francophone music teachers, phys-ed teachers, resource teachers and other specialists who are fluent in French.

“Good year or bad year, we always end up not being able to cover all positions,” said Laberge, who oversees the education of approximately 6,000 students in DSFM.

The division leader said his schools rely on limited teaching permits, but the province has denied requests to allow francophones with temporary certificates to work more days than their English counterparts regardless of the scarcity of French teachers.

“We need to sit down altogether… and say: ‘OK, how can we make sure we have as many good candidates as possible and where are the hurdles? And if it’s certification, maybe we can come up with ideas, change a couple of things, make it easier, knowing that there’s a shortage everywhere,’” he added.

“Good year or bad year, we always end up not being able to cover all positions.”–Alain Laberge

There are no signs the growth of French language education is going to slow down anytime soon, said Joel Martine, interim executive director of Canadian Parents for French — Manitoba. Martine noted the benefits of being bilingual, including the job and travel opportunities it provides, and a wave of immigration from French-speaking countries.

As far as he is concerned, building a healthy francophone teaching workforce will require employers to ensure they increasingly find ways to support staff well-being so the profession appeals to graduates within the province and beyond.

Martine added there is an urgency to addressing the shortage, citing boards in other provinces that have resorted to rolling out lottery systems for immersion enrolment.

The education minister indicated his office is not considering implementing a game-of-chance or first-come-first-served model for accepting students into French programs.

Ewasko said the strategy requires an “all hands on deck” approach to recruit Manitoba high schoolers and others to pursue teaching in French.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie