Language-test failure rates higher in French

OTTAWA – English-speaking public servants and external job applicants tested for their skills in French are much more likely to fail federal government second-language evaluation tests than francophones assessed for their abilities in English.

Despite that, Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser received a complaint earlier this year alleging that English second language tests are more difficult than French tests.

According to documents released under Access to Information, the complaint originated with someone at the Canada Revenue Agency, which employs 50,000 people at 57 locations across Canada.

Among other things, the complaint “raised concerns about the impartiality of the SLE (second language evaluation) tests and those who administer them at the Canada Revenue Agency,” says a March 7, 2012 memo by Gerry Thom, the Public Service Commission’s vice-president of staffing and assessment services.

Nelson Kalil, a spokesman for Fraser, said Tuesday the commissioner declined to investigate because the quality of language testing is outside his jurisdiction. But Kalil said Fraser took an interest in the complaint and raised it with PSC president AnneMarie Robinson.

For its part, the PSC — the agency responsible for evaluating second language proficiency for federal government staffing purposes — took the complaint seriously enough to undertake a thorough review of test results over a two-year period.

It concluded that the pass rate data “showed no evidence of the allegation that the English tests are more difficult than the French tests,” according to an internal memo dated February 2012. In fact, “vice versa.”

The three language tests currently in use by the federal government — which measure oral proficiency, written expression and reading comprehension — were introduced between 2008 and 2010 as part of a multi-year project to update and modernize the PSC’s suite of second language tests.

They assess second language proficiency at three different levels: A, B and C, which correspond to basic, intermediate and advanced.

The PSC tracks pass rates and publishes them in its annual report.

The data consistently show better results for francophones tested for English-language skills than for anglophones tested in French.

In 2011-12, 80 per cent of those who took oral proficiency tests at all levels in English passed, compared to two-thirds of those who took oral French tests.

Pass rates were significantly lower for the more challenging level C tests — just 45 per cent for French tests and 55 per cent for English.

In its analysis of the CRA complaint, the PSC studied test results from Jan. 1, 2010 to Dec. 31, 2011.