Would you agree to the following law for the Province of Ontario?
1. An elementary or secondary school may compel a pupil who is born on or after the second 1 January from the day this law is passed to learn a second language only if the school has proven itself capable of ensuring that the pupil has a reasonable chance to succeed in learning the language well enough to use it in a trade or profession by the time he completes his compulsory education. This includes being able to search for, find, read, and understand advertisements for the trade or profession, write a cover letter and a resume in response to an ad, sit and pass an interview, and perform the tasks necessary to the trade or profession, all in the second language. The school has the duty to collect the necessary data to prove beyond reasonable doubt that it can fulfil this requirement before it may compel a pupil to learn a second language.
According to Statscan in 2006(Population by knowledge of official language, by province and territory (2006 Census)), 12,028,895 people reside in Ontario, with 10,335,705 knowing English but not French. This would mean that about 86% of Ontarians know English but not French. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that French was compulsory in all elementary and secondary schools across Ontario. If that's the case, then we could asume that 100% of Ontario residents have studied English, so we can count their lack of knowledge of French as a failure to learn it. This woud mean an 86% failure rate, or a 14% rate of success. Add to this that this census is based on self assessment and not on any objective language test.
Now to be fair, some of these Ontarians might not have finished their compulsory educaion, or others might have completed their secondary school abroad. But even if we tripled this rate of success just to be kind, we'd still have a rate of success below a simple majority, at 42%! This would still be a dismal rate of success.
I'm sure most people would agree that a second language is useful only if we can learn it well, otherwise it's a waste of money. I believe this law would improve educaiton by either ensuring that if a school cannot guarantee within reason that a pupil will succeed, they can't force him to learn his second languge; and if they want to force him to learn it, then they must ensure he succeed. Either way would be an improvement, but no more wasting children's time.
What are your thoughts on this?
1. An elementary or secondary school may compel a pupil who is born on or after the second 1 January from the day this law is passed to learn a second language only if the school has proven itself capable of ensuring that the pupil has a reasonable chance to succeed in learning the language well enough to use it in a trade or profession by the time he completes his compulsory education. This includes being able to search for, find, read, and understand advertisements for the trade or profession, write a cover letter and a resume in response to an ad, sit and pass an interview, and perform the tasks necessary to the trade or profession, all in the second language. The school has the duty to collect the necessary data to prove beyond reasonable doubt that it can fulfil this requirement before it may compel a pupil to learn a second language.
According to Statscan in 2006(Population by knowledge of official language, by province and territory (2006 Census)), 12,028,895 people reside in Ontario, with 10,335,705 knowing English but not French. This would mean that about 86% of Ontarians know English but not French. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that French was compulsory in all elementary and secondary schools across Ontario. If that's the case, then we could asume that 100% of Ontario residents have studied English, so we can count their lack of knowledge of French as a failure to learn it. This woud mean an 86% failure rate, or a 14% rate of success. Add to this that this census is based on self assessment and not on any objective language test.
Now to be fair, some of these Ontarians might not have finished their compulsory educaion, or others might have completed their secondary school abroad. But even if we tripled this rate of success just to be kind, we'd still have a rate of success below a simple majority, at 42%! This would still be a dismal rate of success.
I'm sure most people would agree that a second language is useful only if we can learn it well, otherwise it's a waste of money. I believe this law would improve educaiton by either ensuring that if a school cannot guarantee within reason that a pupil will succeed, they can't force him to learn his second languge; and if they want to force him to learn it, then they must ensure he succeed. Either way would be an improvement, but no more wasting children's time.
What are your thoughts on this?
