Edmonton Journal: Government Cuts ESL, Immigrant Services
TESL Network Canada
Government cuts ESL, immigrant services
Critics say the savings in expenditures are short-sighted
Despite the need for more immigrants to ease projected labour shortages, the Alberta government will cut services for newcomers, including English language training and settlement supports.
Critics say the cuts, which span two ministries, are short-sighted and hurt the most vulnerable people.
In Thursday's budget, Employment and Immigration pledged to slash $8.7 million to immigrant services, including $3.4 million for English as a second language programs, also called ESL.
Similarly, the Education Department will cut an $11-million grant program that serves its most vulnerable immigrant students.
NDP MLA Rachel Notley said the province will end up paying for the cuts. "The immigrant population is growing," Notley said Friday. "If we don't support their settlement into the community, we're going to run into more problems down the line."
Notley said cuts to the Housing and Urban Affairs budget will also hurt newcomers since they are more likely to need subsidized housing.
Immigration Minister Thomas Lukaszuk said the cuts in his department are largely because the federal government ended a temporary stimulus program.
While he admitted it would be nice to continue funding the programs, Lukaszuk said there are other ways to replace the 600 ESL classroom spaces lost to the cuts.
"The classroom setting is not ideal for all immigrants," Lukaszuk said. He pointed to programs such as a recent partnership with CBC that features modified news stories and lesson plans for English learners.
In the school system, regular ESL education will continue, said a spokeswoman for Alberta Education. But the department is cutting an enhanced ESL program, which has existed for roughly five years.
Kathy Telfer said she's confident school boards will be able to take what they've learned from that program and incorporate it into their regular ESL instruction.
"School boards have had a number of years incorporating best practices learned from working with this particular student population," she said. "They should be able to adapt some of their learning into the regular ESL program."
But the Alberta Teachers' Association believes cuts put the most desperate students at risk. The program was designed to help students who are functionally illiterate in their own language, have little exposure to English or formal schooling and have been exposed to traumatic events in their home country. "If we screw up with these kids, they're the ones who are going to be featured in (The Journal) on the front page because they're dead in some alley," the ATA's Dennis Theobald said. "It's really an example of a poor decision."
Theobald said teachers and school boards won't abandon the children, but will be forced to divert resources from other areas to cover the shortfall.