Francisation Quebec plagued with bottlenecks as students wait to take French classes

Since its creation about a year ago, Francisation Québec has been struggling to keep up with demand, resulting in "bottlenecks."

Nearly half of those who have applied for registration had still not started their courses as of April 15, 2024.

Those are findings from French Language Commissioner Benoît Dubreuil's latest report, made public on Wednesday.

Set up in June 2023, Francisation Québec is a one-stop shop designed to simplify access to French courses, particularly for newcomers.

Between the time of its creation and April 2024, out of nearly 99,000 requests the organization received, 50,400 people had started their courses or received confirmation of enrolment.

"Since June 1, 2023, however, the mechanisms put in place have not been able to keep up with the large volume of applications submitted," the report reads. "Bottlenecks have thus appeared in the group training process, creating waiting times for applicants and causing various problems for service providers and students alike."

The report states that there is "a close link between the increase in the number of temporary foreign workers in Quebec and the increase in the number of applications for French courses," but that this demand does not seem to have been anticipated by Francisation Québec.

"And yet, the significant growth in the number of temporary workers who don't speak French was not completely unforeseeable. Indeed, it is the result of changes that the governments of Quebec and Canada implemented without first assessing the capacity of French language learning services to accommodate this new clientele," the commissioner says in his 121-page report.

Dubreuil recommends "developing a robust demand forecasting model and strengthening enrolment management mechanisms, so as to promote the reduction of processing times."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on May 29, 2024.