French division’s needs unique
The Conseil des écoles fransaskoises (CEF), Saskatchewan’s French language school board, has been embroiled for several weeks in an ongoing budgetary crisis.
The financial issues facing the board apparently are so severe it was rumoured that CEF would not be able to make payroll for teachers. Currently, it needs to find more than $4 million in savings this year alone.
As to who is responsible for these financial troubles, it depends on who you ask. The provincial government says the CEF has received more than enough funding for programs and activities. The board argues, however, that its problems derive from chronic government underfunding, in violation of francophones’ charter rights.
The dispute between the government and the board, while acute today, actually has simmered for several years. My research shows that difficulties between the CEF and the government reflect broader, uneasy relations between Saskatchewan’s English speakers and French speakers.
In 1998, the francophone board successfully sued the Tisdale school division for refusing to allow Fransaskois students use of a gymnasium that was built with federal money allotted for official languages.
In 2002, the CEF threatened legal action, arguing that its funding was inadequate to meet specific challenges to francophone education in Saskatchewan. The government avoided a trial by increasing education grants for francophones in the same year, opting to increase them again in 2004. Problems arose in 2009 when the CEF requested $31 million from the government, but was granted only $25.4 million.
Since 2009, relations between the CEF and the province have been strained.
The board’s budget proposals have frustrated the government, which argues that the CEF is asking for unsustainable increases, and that CEF’s per capita funding is more than generous compared to grants to other boards. Meanwhile, the CEF perceives the financial constraints placed upon it as discriminatory and has turned to the courts, gaining some financial relief via yearly injunctions.
As mentioned in a 2013 Court of Appeal decision, the two sides continue to argue over whether the province must fund outof-province students who attend schools in Lloydminster and Bellegarde, and if the government must fund pre-kindergarten education.
Who benefits from this financial and legal impasse? Certainly not the students, who must learn under threat of program cutbacks. The people of Saskatchewan also lose out on their tax dollars, with public money used for lengthy legal battles rather than educational outcomes.
What is needed is a clear, pragmatic vision for francophone education in Saskatchewan that will produce a long-term solution to the ongoing financial wrangling. While funding should continue to be based on per capita calculations, it should not ignore that the CEF has specific management challenges that other boards do not have to face.
CEF operates 15 schools in communities across Saskatchewan, and has roughly 1,600 students. Some of the board’s schools have fewer than 100 students. There are transportation, maintenance, curricular, cultural and administrative challenges for the board that bear little resemblance to those of other school divisions.
Economies of scale and structural savings in administration which are possible elsewhere simply cannot be made by the CEF. To expect the CEF to do what other boards can is simply unfair.
A pragmatic vision also should recognize that francophone education is a constitutional right rather than a privilege. This vision would be mindful of the great deal of harm inflicted on Saskatchewan’s francophone communities throughout history.
In 1917, French instruction was limited to Grade 1, while in 1931 all languages other than English were banned in Saskatchewan schools except for one hour of French teaching in Grade 1. It was not until 1968 that French would be taught in Saskatchewan schools for a maximum of 80 per cent of instructional time. By then a great deal of damage had already been done to French-speaking communities.
Today, the government and the CEF must find a way to offer quality and cost-effective francophone education in Saskatchewan. Only by taking into account the particular administrative challenges of the CEF and the constitutional and historical principles of minority francophone education can a path forward be found.