Lucie is celebrating her fifth birthday today. Her parents have signed her up for the September session in the new École Baie Sainte-Marie. The family, descendants of the Acadian pioneers, are very attached to their Acadian culture and ferociously defend the French language. The parents have jobs in the region, and they want Lucie educated in French in area schools. After six years in primary school Lucie can continue at the Clare Secondary School where after six years, she will receive her high school diploma. Then, she can, if she so desires, attend Université Saint Anne, the only French post-secondary institution in Nova Scotia.

Being able to be educated completely in French thanks to the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial, seems completely natural at the beginning of the 21st century! However, because of assimilation towards the English language, it has been a long cultural struggle to get to this point. Let’s go to the beginning of the 19th century, when the first priest of the newly founded Saint-Marie Parish of the Baie Sainte-Marie, is Father Jean-Mandé Sigogne…

The First Public Schools

“Ignorance, you know, is a vice; and it places you in an inferior position with regard to educated people…” . This is Father Sigogne’s distressing and moralizing sermon to his parishioners, admonishing them for their indifference about the education of their children. However, how can one blame them? After their exile, towards the end of the 1760s, isolated and dispersed, rejected by the English majority because they were Roman Catholic, deprived of spiritual guidance, the Acadians had remained poor and illiterate.  What could they do? Certainly not be deprived of their children’s help at home, on the fishing boats, in the fields, or in the forests.

However, gradually, the provincial public school education system was being put in place. The 1811 law recommended that a school should be opened in each village that had at least thirty families. The 1826 law divided the province into school districts. After the 1826 law, public schools began being opened in Acadian areas. Was French instruction really accepted in these schools? The 1841 law illiminated any doubt that schools where French, Gaelic, or German speakers attended would benefit like the English-speaking students.

At the end of the 1840s, most of the Acadian villages had a public primary school. However, most children did not attend. Parents did not have the money to cover the teachers’ salaries and the maintenance of the buildings. Only a minority of children had the chance to go to school. Instruction was in French even if the books were in English. The long cultural struggle was only just beginning…

English Only Schools

In 1864, Nova Scotia was the first Maritime province to adopt a law permitting access to education for all. The famous Tupper Law established an English system. It also began the construction of many small schools in the province. In principle, the only schools which had the right to obtain public funds were those that had instructors with English teaching permits. Since then, could one have feared that it was fatal to use French in a learning context? It was rare to find teachers able to teach Acadian children who, in general, only spoke French.

Over the next decades, Acadians made significant gains. Bonuses were given to francophone teachers who were able to teach in what became bilingual schools. Teaching in French using French textbooks was tolerated in primary schools. But this progress was completely unrealistic because secondary school and provincial exams were always in English. Paradoxically, for the majority English population, teaching in French made it easier for the young Acadians to be taught in English; that is an easier assimilation towards the English language and culture.

In the 1960s, while assimilation progressed in the schools and in Acadian families, the Quebec independence movement had an opposite effect at the federal level. In 1969 the federal government adopted the Official Languages Act that aimed at developing bilingualism in areas within its jurisdiction. It was a veritable revolution with positive repercussions for the Acadian minority in Nova Scotia especially in the 1980s…

A Decisive Moment

In the 1970s, thanks to money from federal programs, teaching French was encouraged in primary schools in Nova Scotia. French language immersion programs were successfully created. We can understand English parents. French was now as valued as English at the federal level; they saw its worth for their children entering the workplace. However, Acadian parents were less enthusiastic because their children often read and wrote English better than French. Why teach our children in French if they wish to integrate into an English-speaking society?

The decisive moment took place in 1981. Despite the hesitancy of the Acadian population, under pressure from the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse (FANE), the province adopted a revised version of the Tupper Law, called Bill 65. The law finally gave a legal statue to Acadian schools and guaranteed the inclusion of Acadian history and culture courses in the curriculum. Bill 65 seemed to stem from the 1981 Canadian Charter of Rights and Liberties which the provincial government had to respect. Section 23 of the Charter ensured that parents had the right to have their children educated in public schools, from primary to secondary, in the minority language of their province – English or French. Although the right was recognized, Bill 65 was difficult to apply in secondary schools where the most flexibility was required. Not only was there a lack of teachers trained in teaching in French, but also many Acadian students had an insufficient knowledge of French.

In 1996, the Nova Scotia government allowed the creation of the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial, giving them the permission to manage their schools in the French language. This resulted in a heated debate between parents for and against homogenous schools in which all courses were given in French (except for the English course). Parents against homogenous schools were much more numerous. Education entirely in French was thus rejected. The English language remained a language of instruction and Acadian schools remained bilingual. Parents in favour of homogenous schools were convinced that the competition between the French and English languages would only jeopardize the quality of French language education and contribute to the assimilation of young Acadians. Some of them took the matter to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court to enforce their rights guaranteed by Section 23 of the Charter.

In June 2000, Justice Arthur LeBlanc handed down his decision ordering the provincial government to establish secondary schools with French-language homogeneous programs in Acadian regions. Thus, as a result, education in French was protected at the legal and pedagogical levels. In the Municipality of Clare, Lucie’s parents are proud of this achievement. Although they are aware that their child is bilingual, they are also firmly convinced that being educated in French will give her more chance of being integrated into the English-speaking society.

What is happening today in the CSAP schools?  Historian Sally Ross gives us the answer: “The CSAP has evolved since 2000. Today the majority of CSAP schools are in urban centres and are attended by French students from everywhere. It is no longer a homogeneous Acadian population.” A concluding thought. The Acadians fought for an education in French for their children. Now, the CSAP offers an education in French, not only to Acadian children, but it is also open to all the francophone cultures of the province.

Header image: Entrance of Clare Secondary School, La Butte (Photo courtesy of Clare Secondary School, Centre scolaire acadien provincial).

Author: Jean-Marc Agator,
Paris Region, France.

English translation: Barbara LeBlanc,
Chéticamp Region (NS), Canada.

Main Sources

Ross, Sally ; Les écoles acadiennes en Nouvelle-Ecosse, 1758-2000 ; Centre d’études acadiennes, Université de Moncton, 2001.

Ross, Sally, et J. Alphonse Deveau ; Les Acadiens de la Nouvelle-Ecosse, hier et aujourd’hui ; Les Editions d’Acadie, Moncton, 1995.