Few CEGEPs offer bilingual programs

For the last four years, Vanier College has offered an exchange program with CEGEP de St-Laurent in which students studying social sciences or sciences can take most of their courses in English at Vanier, and others in French at nearby St-Laurent, and vice versa.

Students take one course per semester at their nearby French or English counterpart, and also attend the CEGEP in their other language for one full semester. They have to be fairly fluent in both languages and have marks above 80 per cent to be able to apply. Anywhere between seven and 15 students have signed up for the bilingual program each year, said program co-ordinator and Vanier psychology professor Loris Peternelli. The students are not grouped together in their courses so that they become fully immersed in their French or English environments.

“We wanted them to be totally exposed to the other college, so that they are really like a student there,” Peternelli said, complete with student IDs for both colleges and the right to join intramural teams.

The feedback has been positive from students who appreciate the increased independence and their improved chances of getting into the program of their choice because they can apply to French and English universities.

Despite the obvious benefits to allowing CEGEP students to study in both languages, few similar programs exist in Quebec. In a province where the Parti Québécois campaigned in 2013 on the promise to bar non-anglophones from Quebec’s public English-language CEGEPs, the creation of bilingual DECs remains a politically contentious move.

Vanier and CEGEP de St-Laurent’s program was created as a joint effort by the two colleges and approved by Quebec’s Education Ministry under a Liberal government. But it was launched with little fanfare in 2014, and advertised as an “English and French” program, as opposed to bilingual. Champlain Regional College offers a bilingual DEC in tourism management.

The private CEGEPs Marianopolis and Brébeuf also offer an exchange program, in which students in their fourth semester can take some of their courses at the other college in the other language.

Dawson College and CEGEP Bois-de-Boulogne have discussed offering a joint, bilingual DEC in natural sciences allowing 40 students from each college to split classes between the two, but plans are still just in the discussion phase, school officials said. The plans have already spurred grumbling from critics who note attendance is dropping at French CEGEPs while colleges like Dawson are filled to capacity.

At Vanier, political considerations never came into play for students or administrators, Peternelli said.

“We were just looking at what is the best experience we can offer to our students,” he said.