Unsurprisingly, French continues to decline in Quebec high schools in favor of the language of Shakespeare, and those in Vaudreuil-Soulanges are no exception.

Updated on August 30, the Ministry of Education's dashboard shows the results of senior high school students in the June 2024 ministerial exams.

In French, the pass rate on the writing exam for Secondary V students in schools governed by the Centre de services scolaires des Trois-Lacs is 63%, 9.3 percentage points lower than in 2023. For Quebec as a whole, the success rate is 66.9%, a decrease of 4.2 percentage points. 

Boys saw the biggest drop, with the pass rate falling from 67.9% in 2023 to 56.2% in 2024.

In the written production test in English as a second language, the success rate for Vaudreuil-Soulanges students fell from 97.3% in 2024 to 94% in 2023.

While male students lost some feathers in French, they made good progress in English, with a pass rate of 93.1% in 2023, and 97.7% in 2024 for the written production test. For girls, the increase was more modest, from 95.1% to 96.7%.

The biggest increase was in Secondary IV mathematics, particularly in the Culture, Society and Technology course. In 2023, the pass rate was 71.5%, while in 2024 it was 85.8%, an increase of 14.2 percentage points. 

For the mathematics course Natural Sciences, the pass rate remained more stable at 91.1%, while for the course entitled Science and Technology, it fell from 83.8% to 74.6%. 

The downward trend was also felt in the Secondary 4 History of Quebec and Canada course, where a drop of 4.4 percentage points was noted. 

Reading French, a major challenge for English-speaking students

English-speaking students in the Lester-Bearson School Board showed the biggest decline, particularly in the French-second-language reading test. The pass rate fell from 90.6% in June 2023 to 69.4% in 2024. The biggest drop was among girls, down 21.5 percentage points.

In the writing test, results improved significantly, with a pass rate of 72.8% in June 2024 versus 69.7% in June 2023.