Under Quebec’s language law Bill 96, students graduating from high-school are expected to provide a certificate of eligibility to demonstrate that they are eligible to attend an English CEGEP if they choose to apply to such institutions. 

The new requirement for the certificate of eligibility stems from the provincial government’s decision to cap the number of students that can attend English CEGEPs and give priority to those students that have received instruction in English. 

Students are expected to provide their certificate of eligibility to the English CEGEP of their choice before the application deadline of March 1. 

After the English CEGEPs voiced their concerns about meeting the new requirements under Bill 96, the Ministry of Higher Education (CEGEP and university) announced that it was making changes to the requirement to make it easier for some students and parents scrambling to find their certificate of eligibility.

The Ministry of Higher Education is now working alongside the Ministry of Education (elementary and high-school) to make their database, which compiles the names and permanent codes of students that are eligible to receive instruction in English, available to the English CEGEPs. 

The CEGEPs will automatically have access to the files of students that are eligible to receive instruction in English and these particular students will no longer have to provide the certificate of eligibility. 

Chairman for the Eastern Townships School Board (ETSB) Michael Murray speaks out on his concerns regarding the new requirement and how the ETSB is going about preparing for the expected surge in requests for the eligibility certificates.

“This is a new provision and it was never required before. When the CEGEPs signaled to the Ministry in question that they would need to do this starting in March when registration deadline occurs, it seemed to catch them by surprise. Initially, the CEGEPs thought they were going to have to have each applicant produce a certificate of eligibility,” said Murray. 

Murray added that "happily, common sense reigned." 

“All they needed to do was have the information, which attaches to the student number, that the student already has eligibility. Instead of building a whole new file, the two ministries agreed that the Ministry of Higher Education could have access to the files of the students graduating from English high-schools,” he told CIDI.

Murray described the decision as a “huge improvement.”

“You would think all of this would have happened before. (…) The one issue that does remain though, is for all of those students whose parents chose to send them to French school who might want to attend an English CEGEP. They will now have to find the certificate and that means going back to whatever eligibility they had, whether it was a parent or a grandparent,” he explained. 

According to Murray, while some parents took the precaution and applied to receive their eligibility certificate from an English school board before registering their child at a French school, it’s not the case for every student. 

“For those that didn’t, now there is a mad scramble. The importance of this is way beyond just the actual student, but any descendant of that student, by current law, remains eligible to attend English school. (…) To keep that option available, they have to obtain the certificate of eligibility. We, perhaps, were not as aggressive as we might have been in letting people know,” said Murray.

Under Bill 101 (Charter of French Language), when a parent wants to register their child with an English school board, like the ETSB, they need to demonstrate eligibility and then they can receive the certificate of eligibility. 

“If a parent has, for example, a student record with the school board, no problem. We can certify them as having attended English school and therefore their children are eligible. We can provide that documentation to the government, we send it to a particular office in the ministry, who then issue a certificate of eligibility. If it’s a grandparent, it’s similar, but more of a complicated process because you have to dig out birth certificates for two generations,” explained Murray. 

After realizing that the new requirement was going to cause issues, Murray immediately approached the ETSB’s administrators to figure out how the school board was going handle the expected requests for the certificate of eligibility. It was then, according to Murray, that they discovered a particular provision that does not allow a school board to treat a file of a person that is over 18. 

“So if you’re 18, you haven’t gotten your certificate, and you call the school board, the school board is going to shrug and say ‘we regret to inform you that I guess we don’t have the right to look at your dossier.’ The ministry to which we send that request is not geared up at this particular point, as I understand it, to do anything about those kinds of files. (…) There’s still a ways to go and I’m sure there are people scrambling,” Murray highlighted. 

CIDI has reached out to the Ministry of Higher Education for comment.

For more information on the certificate of eligibility.

Listen to the full interview below: