Ontario Francophone access to and participation in postsecondary education

1979-1994

Executive Summary

The complete report, Accessibilité et participation des francophones de l'Ontario à l'éducation postsecondaire, 1979-1994, produced in French, is available on this website (PDF, 353KB).

The study is essentially an update of previous access and participation studies by the authors as related to Ontario Francophones. As in the previous studies, the authors show population flows of Ontario Francophones through the various types of secondary schools (English/ French/"mixed" as well as Separate/Public) to full time postsecondary studies at the college and undergraduate levels. Enrollment data are also provided for graduate levels of enrollment.

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	Methodology Enrollment data Mother tongue Educational indicators	Findings Elementary/Secondary Undergraduate enrollments College enrollments	Conclusion

Methodology

This study is a comparative and historical study of enrollments at the secondary and tertiary levels of study in Ontario.

Enrollment data

University enrollments are shown for the period 1979-1994, college postsecondary enrollments only for the period 1982-1992 and secondary enrollments for the period 1967-1995 in some cases, but largely for the period 1980-1995.

At the undergraduate level, enrollment data are provided by mother tongue, by sex and by major field of study and for some three dozen of the most popular programs for Ontario Francophones. In addition, enrollment data are provided for the three bilingual universities (Ottawa/Laurentian/York/Glendon).

At the college level, enrollment data are provided by mother tongue, by sex and by division and by college. Although this study refers back to enrollment data starting in 1982, the initial period is not exactly comparable to the period after 1989, given the change of definition of the category of mother tongue.

At the elementary and secondary levels, enrollment data is provided by language of instruction of the school (i.e. English and French).

In addition, the study provides transition data of Ontario Francophones from individual secondary schools, both French and "mixed" through applications, acceptances and registrants in undergraduate programs. Applications and acceptances data are theoretically available for college enrollments also, but were not available for this study. As a result, individual schools were not identified in the final report since no combined transition rate to college and university could be provided. In the case of transition data, the types of secondary schools are distinguished according to the language of instruction (English/French/mixed) and type (public/separate).

Mother tongue

In a study of this type, nothing would appear to be more crucial than to identify with precision the target population; in this case, Ontario Francophones. At the same time, nothing is more difficult to achieve given the state of various ministry data sources.

At the elementary and secondary levels, there is no systemic accounting of enrollment according to mother tongue. System-wide enrollment data is available only by the language of instruction of the school.

The question of mother tongue emerges for the first time in applications data from the two applications centres in Guelph. An additional problem emerges at this time because colleges and universities do not provide the same categories of mother tongue. University application forms provide three categories of "mother tongue": English/French/other. College application forms (since 1990) provide four categories of "first language": English/French/bilingual and other. The category "bilingual" is meant to apply to French/English bilinguals, but an examination of OCAS applications data revealed a very large number of applicants who assigned themselves to this category, much more than census data would suggest possible, such that supplementary estimates were needed to determine the overall college Francophone population.

Educational indicators

One of the by-products of this study has been the development of a certain number of educational indicators which could conceivably be used in contexts other than that of access studies.

Some of those indicators are amenable to use across educational levels e.g. the index of concentration of females in programs or major field of study; others would appear to be useful at one level only, e.g. the index of attraction of colleges. Still others would be appropriate to postsecondary levels alone e.g. the index of mobility of postsecondary students.

What follows is a table of various indicators used in this study and the level at which each one was used. Some of them are traditional indicators used in this type of study; others have been developed for this study.

In addition, the traditional indicators of gross full-time and part-time enrollments were used throughout as well as that of distributions by major field of study, by program and by gender. Distributions were expressed as a percentage of total enrollments.

Comparative data with the non-Francophone population was presented throughout the study, although this was a methodological choice, not a normative one. It was not assumed that Francophone enrollments should mirror those of the rest of the population.

Findings

The main findings are summarized below and grouped according to level.

Elementary/Secondary

Attrition data reveal a rate of loss at the end of the elementary panel which reached 25% of an original cohort of pupils beginning in grade one seven years previously. Since there are (almost) no "dropouts" in the elementary panel, it is assumed that this loss of pupils is due to the transfer of students to another system, either in-province or out-of-province. The attrition rates were derived from stock data only, such that the final rate was the result of departures combined with an additional number of new arrivals who were assumed to compensate partially for the departures. One can conclude that French-language elementary schools are constantly having to deal with large numbers of arrivals and departures, and coterminously, with varying degrees of linguistic competence associated with those transfers. This is assumed to provide a major pedagogical difficulty for those schools.

It is almost impossible, for the moment, to determine the actual "dropout" rate from French-language secondary schools. On the other hand, it is clear that the number of Francophones making the transition to university from English-language secondary schools is quite low but not insignificant.

Our previous studies had highlighted the transition rates to university according to type of secondary school attended (French/English/"mixed" and Public/Separate). Since our last study in 1989 a number of mixed schools have acquired the status of French-language secondary schools even though the pedagogical context does not appear to have changed. The result is a statistical artefact which irons out the differences in transition rates between types of schools. Henceforth we recommend not attempting these finer distinctions. The only distinction which remains significant is that of transition rates of Francophones from English-language and French-language schools, the so-called "mixed" schools being calculated with the French-language schools.

Undergraduate enrollments

Participation rates

The most important finding of this study is that of comparative overall undergraduate participation rates. Up until the mid 1980s, the overall Francophone participation rate had increased at approximately the same rate as that of Ontario non-Francophones . The result had been a continuing participation rate among Francophones of little more than half that of the rest of the population. This study shows that by the mid-1980s, participation rates of Ontario Francophones begin to rise incrementally and continue up to 1994 at which time participation rates reached 71.1% that of Ontario non-Francophones, a rate which reveals much progress since the mid 1980s. Figure 1 shows this development over a 16 year period.

The movement in participation rates is particularly important because it had been widely assumed among Ontario Francophones that the creation of French-language secondary schools at the end of the 1960s would automatically translate into higher postsecondary participation rates. This was partially true in that participation rates did follow the increase in participation rates of the general population. But there had been no relative increase until the mid 1980s, at which time the relative participation rates begin to increase slowly.

Fig.1 - General participation rate of Ontario Francophones and non-Francophones, 1979-1994

One of the research tasks embedded in this study was to determine if the creation of La Cité collégiale had had an adverse effect upon university enrollments. There had been some informal speculation that Francophone university enrollments had reached a ceiling and that the new French-language college would draw enrollments away from the universities. This study shows that there appears to have been no discernible impact on university enrollments.

Perhaps even more revealing are the comparative participation rates in the major field of education (teacher education, leisure studies, kinesiology). The field of education is the only major field of studies in which an Ontario Francophone has a high probability of studying in French and then, after graduation, working in French. The results as shown in Figure 2 are eloquent. It is another example, often noted in minority contexts, of the results of a combination of two major factors: the availability of appropriate educational services and the availability of job opportunities in French.

Fig. 2 ­ Participation rates of Ontario Francophones and non-Francophones, 1979­1994, Education

Needless to say, other fields of study do not show the same progress. It would appear that the participation rate in various fields is related to the availability of programs in French. In those fields in which there are large numbers of programs available in French, the participation rate approaches that of non-Francophones. In fields of study in which there are few programs available in French, the participation rate is correspondingly low.

Full-time/Part-time studies

One of the more disquieting trends appearing in the data is related to the enrollments of full-time and part-time students. Up until 1992 almost half of Francophone university students were part-time students. From 1989 to 1994 the number of part-time Francophone students fell by 29.0% while the number of full-time students continued to rise, such that by 1994 only approximately one-third of Francophone students were part-time students. Non-Francophone part-time enrollments fell by some 7.7% to 28.7% of total enrollments, increasing the already heavy weighting in favour of full-time students.

Much has already been said and written about the purported trend to part-time studies. These latest data indicate a change in the trends, such that there is a more recent tendency toward full-time studies. More precisely, full-time enrollments continue to rise (non-Francophone enrollments peaked in 1992) while part-time enrollments fall off imperceptibly in the case of the general population and dramatically in the case of Ontario Francophones. Given the importance of this phenomenon, we reproduce the comparative data in the following table.

Retention rates in bilingual institutions

Comparative retention rates based on stock data are provided for Francophones and non-Francophones in the three bilingual institutions: Ottawa, Laurentian, and Glendon for the period 1982­1994. The retention rates are quite similar for Francophones and non-Francophones in each institution, suggesting that the attrition phenomenon is institution-specific rather than language-specific. In all instances the retention rate of Francophones is slightly higher at the beginning of the period 1982­1994 and slightly lower at the end.

On the other hand, retention rates vary wildly from one institution to another. In one institution the numbers of enrollments actually increase over a three-year span, whereas in another they fall off by 66% over the same three-year span. It could be alleged that this attrition rate is due to large numbers of transfers to part-time studies in the same institution or to full-time studies in other institutions, but as we have seen above, part-time enrollments are down significantly among Francophones. If there are large numbers of transfers to another institution, then that would cover the trace of other departures from the receiving institution. No matter how one analyses the problem, it appears that retention in the institutions for which we have provided data needs to be examined further. There is an important loss of full-time enrollments that requires explanation.

College enrollments

Data sources

The most important finding relative to college enrollments is in fact a non-event. After 1991 student enrollment data for the OCIS files were no longer added to and by 1994 were unavailable except for gross total enrollments. We were able to make system-wide Francophone enrollment projections for the academic year 1993-94 on the basis of partial indices from the 1992 data which were considered still valid. After 1993 it became evident that those projections were simply too tenuous to attempt with any degree of confidence.

In July 1995, faced with the requirement to reduce the numbers of Ministry staff, the Ministry of Education and Training chose to discontinue OCIS, with the intent being to have another body external to he government assume this data collection function. As of this writing, future directions have yet to be determined for this service. This gap arrived at a particularly inopportune moment for Ontario Francophones. With the creation of La Cité collégiale in 1990 and the transfer of programs from the bilingual colleges to the new French-language colleges, Le Collège Boréal and Le Collège des Grands Lacs, it would have been particularly important to be able to trace population flows of Ontario Francophones from one type of college to the next and the impact of the new colleges on the participation rate of Francophones.

This report does make some tentative projections regarding the pattern of student flows from bilingual college to French-language college on the basis of the pattern of enrollments during the early years of La Cité collégiale, but a full-scale analysis of enrollments by field of study and by program was unfortunately impossible.

CAAT participation rates

In our previous study we had noted that the economic recession of 1982 had had a particularly deleterious effect on Francophone participation rates at the college level. At the time there had been an effort throughout the college system to cut back on costs, and in the bilingual colleges this often took the form of combining courses which previously had been offered in both languages, to the obvious detriment of courses offered in French. This strategy was particularly evident in the division of Technology where it was often alleged that the language of technology was in any case English, thus the combining of courses was to be considered an advantage for the students.

Yet the result was a dramatic fall in Francophone enrollments. Since the drop in enrollments was concentrated in the area of technology, the impact was felt more among Francophone males. The result was twofold: enrollment levels did not reach 1982 levels until 1990, and the ratio of females to males reached 60% of total Francophone enrollments.

Fig. 3 shows the overall pattern of participation rates for Francophones and non-Francophones alike. The 1993 participation rates reflect projections based upon the partial availability of enrollment data due to the gradual weakening of the OCIS data. It will be noted that participation rates start to rise in 1990, precisely at the moment of the opening of La Cité collégiale. It would appear that they are once again approaching the rates of the non-Francophone population. In addition, the distribution of males and females is once again almost equal.

Fig. 3 - Comparative participation rates of Ontario Francophones and non-Francophones, CAATs, 1979-1994

Distribution of males and females

One of the more perplexing situations in French-language education is the long-time preponderance of females over males. At the time of our previous study in 1989 Francophone females had reached approximately 60% of postsecondary enrollments, at both college and undergraduate level. The ascendancy of Francophone females at the undergraduate level had begun before we began collecting data in 1979 whereas that of non-Francophone females came about much later in 1987. As we have seen previously, the lead of Francophone female participation rates at the college level began in the early 1980s following a large decline of male enrollments.

Fig. 4 below summarizes the relative participation rates of Ontario Francophones and non-Francophones at the undergraduate level. The slope of the curves indicates that the participation rate is increasing faster for both Francophone males and females alike and that among Francophones the participation rate of females is increasing faster than that of males. However, the 1994 data suggest a slight decline for Francophone males. In addition, the gap between Francophone males and females is almost double that between non-Francophone males and females.

Fig. 4 - Comparative participation rates of Ontario Francophone and non-Francophone males and females, 1979-1994

There is of course the entire question of gender segregation according to program or field of study and this question was addressed to some extent in the study. An index of concentration was provided for each field of study which provides comparisons of the relative importance of each field of study and of each of the three dozen more popular programs among Francophones.

Conclusion

Taken in isolated fashion, the participation rates would appear to be slower to respond at the undergraduate level than at the college level. While Francophone college participation rates fell rapidly following the 1982 economic recession, they appear to have rebounded rather more quickly than participation rates at the undergraduate level. The latter have demonstrated a steady yet slower progression. Looked at in this fashion, it would appear that college enrollments are more responsive to contextual features. This interpretation is certainly not to be eschewed.

However, if participation rates are lower at the undergraduate level then theoretically at least, participation rates should be correspondingly higher at the college level. The relative success of Francophones at the college level should thus be interpreted as a relative lack of success, given their lower participation rate at the undergraduate level. The expectation would be for a correspondingly higher participation rate at the college level. We do not make the opposite argument that a lower college participation rate should be compensated for by a higher undergraduate participation rate.

Nonetheless, it is important to note an overall appreciation which is that both levels of postsecondary instruction have demonstrated since the mid 1980s a growing responsiveness to Francophone aspirations. This responsiveness is demonstrated by increasing participation rates. One could dispute if it is enough or if it is rapid enough. What is clear is that since the mid-1980s the accessibility and participation of Francophones have finally begun to improve relative to that of the non-Francophone population.

Normand Frenette be can reached by e-mail at: nfrenette@oise.utoronto.ca