The English Montreal School Board's "tout en français" marketing campaign, launched this week, reflects a well-conceived desire to produce graduates whose French is fully good enough for the job market. This added emphasis on French is a responsible initiative which could well help stem the decline in English-school enrolment.
The EMSB is not the only one of Quebec's nine English school boards trying to improve the level of French its students can speak and read and write. Provided that English boards continue to deliver on their No. 1 linguistic priority - giving English-speaking students a solid grounding in this language - then this change can only help anglophone students - and the whole anglophone community.
English boards are understandably worried about where their students are going to come from. Since 2004, the number of elementary and high school students in EMSB schools, for example, has dropped by 4,000. The Lester B. Pearson School Board, on the west half of Montreal Island, has lost 2,300 over five years.
An aging population is one reason for the decline, but there is also another one: Across Quebec, nearly 14,000 youngsters eligible for English schools are attending French ones instead. These families have obviously decided that only French schools can provide their children with the level of French-language competence they need to thrive.
In a sense it's sad to see school boards battling over a diminishing number of students. But if the competition leads to improved language instruction, everyone will win.
A year ago this month the Quebec Community Groups Network reported, after a substantial study, that many young-adult anglos want to be more bilingual: To have the job prospects they need to stay in Quebec, their French must be more fluent, they said.
Young English-speakers in the regions, more even than in Montreal, feel they need greater mastery of French, written French in particular, to make it in the province's labour market. Young, bilingual anglophones have a higher unemployment rate than bilingual francophones, recent figures show. Unsurprisingly, unilingual English-speakers had the worst unemployment rate of all, 14.3 per cent.
This demand for better French is good news. Where 50 years ago many anglophones resisted francization, and 30 years ago many moved away, their counterparts today just want to get on with life here - by becoming truly fluent in the majority language.
We do have one reservation about the EMSB's new pitch to parents: The "guarantee" that students will be fully bilingual when they graduate is close to meaningless. Education involves more than a solid curriculum and good teachers; students who make only minimum effort will learn little, in any school.
The challenge now will be for the EMSB and other English boards to live up to their promises and actually improve students' French skills. The Pearson board, for example, is preparing additional immersion courses.
These boards are trying to serve the whole community well. We wish them all success with this important project.