J.D. POTIÉ
Shawville Jan. 22, 2020
Last week, the Regional Association of West Quebecers (RAWQ) announced the cancellation of . . .
its second-language French courses for the 2020 winter semester.
According to a statement released on the RAWQ’s website, the decision was made because of unforeseen budgetary constraints.
The RAWQ’s Executive Director, Linton Garner, explained that the organization had planned two sessions for 2020 – one in the spring and the other in the fall – which had already reached the limit of the RAWQ’s annual budget.
“We couldn’t go into a deficit to provide the courses,” he said.
Now in the second of a three-year grant, Garner said that it was more favourable for the RAWQ to wait until the fall, when they will have received additional funds before bringing back the course in the winter.
Garner said that the RAWQ’s budget was designed to support anywhere from 50-100 students per session. They ended up attracting around 200 people in Aylmer, Wakefield and Shawville collectively and the high demand for the course forced the organization to make a difficult decision.
“When we did our first pilot project [in the spring of 2018] … we had 500 people on the waiting list,” he said.
But Garner added that a number of people who had already been taking the course have offered to pay for the course, which is typically free of charge.
Garner said that the RAWQ is currently reorganizing the program and expects to offer second-language French courses at an affordable price of admission at some point next month.
“We hopefully will have everything organized within a week or so,” he said. “They will just be offered at a modest price. At the moment, I haven’t quite determined [the amount].”
“We’re just trying to cross the Ts and dot the Is,” he added.
The semester was supposed to begin in late January.
As of September, the RAWQ’s the courses are expected to once again be free of charge, Garner said.
While the course has been postponed, people who are interested in taking the class in the future can add themselves to the waiting list by becoming an RAWQ member via the organization’s website. For additional information on the matter, people are invited to contact the program’s coordinator at fsl@westquebecers.ca.
