Bilingual School Program Works in Canada (12/26/76)

Bilingual School Program Works in Canada

by Ihor Osakiwsky

CALGARY, Alta. - The key to survival of Ukrainians as a group in Canada is the bilingual school program, says the head of an ethnic research centre located in Edmonton.

Dr. Manoly Lupul, director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, said the traditional Ukrainian Saturday schools have difficulty surviving.

Speaking on the Institute and the bilingual Ukrainian-English program in Edmonton schools, Dr. Lupul addressed an audience of about 50 people at the University of Calgary. The lecture was sponsored by the Ukrainian Students' Association at the U of C.

According to Dr. Lupul, the traditional Saturday schools are designed for children who are already "fluent" in Ukrainian. They do not attract children who are uniligual or of mixed marriages.

The purpose of the bilingual classes is to teach fluency to children who do not speak Ukrainian or do so poorly, noted the professor.

"We know that inter-marriage is on the increase," said Dr. Lupul.

He underlined, however, that the bilingual school program is the "educational mechanism" that can reach parents and children of inter-marriages, and is the key to the future.

Describing the bilingual program and the recently-formed Institute as two "major developments" for Ukrainian Canadians, Dr. Lupul said that what is being done is "to provide Ukrainian schooling of a high quality from the cradle to the grave."

The bilingual program began in Edmonton in 1974 and now stretches from kindergarten to the third grade. Each year the pilot public and separate school project advances a grade.

When first started there were approximately 96 children enrolled in the program. Now there are 460 from kindergarten to grade three.

The education program is a 50-50 proposition, said Dr. Lupul. Although the provincial law allows for more - education in grades one and two can be almost totally in a non-English language provided one hour a day is set aside for English instruction - Dr. Lupul said it was decided to split the teaching evenly from grade one rather than grade three.

The elementary school students are taught in both languages interchangeably instead of cutting the day in half - one portion in English and the other in Ukrainian.

Describing this approach as very "effective", the professor said the entire program has been "fantastically successful."

The weakest link in the bilingual school program has been the question of teacher education. Dr. Lupul explained that many of the teachers have not been trained to teach a second language at "elementary" school level (as opposed to secondary school or university level). This problem is being corrected, he said.

Despite successes there have been some difficulties. The most serious one has been enrollment.

Dr. Lupul said he was disappointed that a Ukrainian population of about 60,000 in Edmonton could not muster 200 children to fill the kindergarten classes: The registration this year was slightly over 110.

Transportation is the second problem. The Ukrainian community is scattered around the city and there is only enough money to bus the kindergarten children to the schools where the program is offered.

A third problem facing the bilingual program, said Dr. Lupul, is the teacher pupil ratio. He suggested a ratio of 12 to 15 students to one teacher rather than the present 25 or over number of students to one teacher.

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