'Fed up' with decline of French, Quebec seeks tuition hike for out-of-province students at English universities
'Fed up' with decline of French, Quebec seeks tuition hike for out-of-province students at English universities
The Quebec government is proposing an increase in tuition fees for international and out-of-province students attending English-language universities as a way to protect the French language.
The Quebec government is proposing an increase in tuition fees for international and out-of-province students attending English-language universities as a way to protect the French language.
I'm curious to see how this could possibly slow the decline of French. France has the highest number of international students going to McGill compared to any other country, and this would make them reconsider moving to Quebec.
It will do absolutely nothing to support their stated goal, but it will be great for the bottom line of universities.
The money will be taken away from the universities. It's unclear whether the QC government will just keep it or redistribute it to French universities.
My question is how does this make economic sense.
In Ontario my undergrad degree costs about 6k a year now. It cost 4k a year when I took it.
How can the Province justify doubling the fees? Won’t that make people not want to go there and select somewhere else instead causing a reduction in the student population?
I don’t understand how this isolationism thing will play out long term unless they encourage French-speaking Quebecois to have more babies (and they already do this) or unless they accept a lot more immigration from French speaking countries. Maybe they are doing this? I don’t know happy to be informed.
I don’t understand how Quebec looks at other extremely isolationist cultures where the population is declining and there’s going to be some sort of crisis and goes “oh yeah, that’s what we want.”
Won’t that make people not want to go there and select somewhere else instead causing a reduction in the student population?
Having English-preferring students go somewhere else seems to be aligned with their goal.
they encourage French-speaking Quebecois to have more babies (and they already do this)
It's understandable that this is not enough, they'll grow up speaking more English than French. Most yougsters in Montreal seem to be fluent in English, so it becomes a matter of diminishing the forces that give younger generations more reasons to speak English day to day. One of those forces is having a bunch of student colleagues that only speak English and attend English classes.
Quebec really seems to want to be its own country rather than melding culture and language like the rest of Canada
Yeah, it's like a country within a country. The culture is quite different.
We do want to meld, but that implies that the ROC needs to meld as well, otherwise it's an erasure and not a union.
I don't really see much evidence of the "rest of Canada" wanting to meld culture and language. Other than french immersion schools and the occasional food truck serving up poutine there's not much of Quebec culture or French language that you'll find outside of Quebec.
If they don't protect what they have, a hundred years from now Canada will be solely an English speaking country and poutine will be covered in nacho cheese.
I mean, I don't have any stake in it one way or the other coming from BC but I understand why they feel protective.
Doesn't it seem like the stronghold mentality is somewhat self defeating, though? I'm also in BC and there's not much evidence of French culture around here, it's true. I'm more likely to encounter Tagalog or Mandarin than French, and would have more opportunity to speak those if learned, but not because those languages are indigenous to the area.
Just Quebecois things