Article content

Four out of five students attend French schools today on the island of Montreal, up from from 63.8 per cent in 1971 – a finding that suggests the schooling provisions of Bill 101 have succeeded demonstrably in safeguarding the French language.

In two studies made public Friday, the Office québécois de la langue française reports on the evolution of the French language in the education sector, from preschool up to CEGEP.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Four out of five pupils attend French schools today in Montreal: study Back to video

Researchers did observe that the proportion of francophones who choose to attend CEGEP in French has dropped by 2.8 per cent from 1985 to 2015, mainly because more francophones are choosing English CEGEP. But this trend was countered by the fact that during the same period, French CEGEPs attracted a rising number of students whose mother tongue is neither French nor English.

Despite statistics showing that French is flourishing in the education sector, a prominent French-rights group released its own study on Friday, titled: “Admissions applications in decline in francophone CEGEPs.”