Canada has seen a spate of university language centre closures and cuts in the past year or so. The University of Winnipeg recently decided to close their English Language Centre. Saint Mary’s University in Halifax closed last May, Simon Fraser in Vancouver closed their English Language and Culture Program last summer. Wilfrid Laurier University discontinued their LEAF program and Mount Saint Vincent University also discontinued their EAP Programs in 2023. Business or budgetary reasons are cited for the closure or that English language is not core programming.

Gary Gervais, owner of the Heartland English School in Winnipeg summarized the recent closure of the University of Winnipeg ELP as a “shortsighted decision”:

[The University of Winnipeg] rationalize the cut by saying the [English Language Program] is outside of their core programming. This tells me that:
(1) they don’t recognize that their language program is a major recruitment channel for the university,
(2) that by primarily relying on language proficiency tests for international student admissions, they will limit the number of countries from which to recruit and, consequently, reduce the diversity of the student population, and
(3) they don’t understand that proficient English with understanding of Canadian culture and context is the most essential skill for their students to be successful in their studies and to find employment after graduation.

Cutting the language program will exacerbate the decline of international students, limit the diversity of their student population, and produce poorer results for students and the university.

I couldn’t agree more. Gary summarizes it clearly: language centres contribute to universities in so many big and small ways, from bolstering institutional objectives around recruitment and enrollment, to supporting student success and retention.

And ironically, in a time of budgetary shortfalls based on decreased numbers of international students, some universities have chosen to do away with the very centres which help them recruit, admit and retain the international students that do continue to want to study in Canada.

Can third parties fill the gap? Partially.

Some would counter that third party language education providers—the private language schools which many universities have pathway agreements with—can fill the gap left by university language centres when they close.

And they definitely can to a certain extent. They provide a holistic, not standardized-exam-focused avenue to satisfy language proficiency requirements for admission, just as on-campus language centres do. There are endless studies and reports (here’s a very recent one, about Chinese students studying internationally) which emphasize the fact that the language evaluated on a standardized exam is only a tiny fraction of the spectrum of language and academic skills needed for success in one’s studies. Students who are admitted based on a exam score alone often report floundering, as in the report cited above, because they lack “real-life” English skills. Language programs, on the other hand, allow students to develop these skills while concurrently satisfying language proficiency admission requirements, and thus better prepare them for their university studies.

Given the near-constant discussions lately about international students and language-testing fraud in the Anglophone world in the media (here, here and here, as just a few examples), why are we taking away alternative ways to demonstrate language proficiency for admission and putting even more emphasis on standardized tests? Unlike IELTS or other large-scale standardized exams used for direct entry, an institution can demand accountability in the form of audits or other measures from a pathway partner, be it an on-campus centre or a private language school.

Regarding recruitment and admissions, if the private language school and the university have a close relationship, the private school can also contribute to the uni’s recruitment and market diversity goals. However, many private language schools feed into multiple postsecondary institutions, so universities miss out on getting a headstart building the brand loyalty and commitment to the institution that comes from enrolling in an on-campus language centre 3-12 months prior to beginning their degree program.

University language centres and student retention

But from the university’s perspective, there is another very important limit to the benefits that a private language school can provide. While both a private language school and an on-campus centre can play a role in language development for admissions, only the on-campus centre has a role to play in supporting on-going student success throughout a student’s whole academic career.

Many university language centres in Canada don’t just offer pre-admission, pathway English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programs. Many offer programming (be it workshops, non-credit courses, one-on-one tutorials, credit-bearing courses, self-access resources, etc.) focused on language and academic skills development for any and all university students (including Canadian citizens and permanent residents) who are users of English as an additional language (EAL). Perhaps a student was admitted using an IELTS exam score, but wants extra support with the research process and how to abide by the values of academic integrity in their writing. Maybe another student got a high IELTS exam score but struggles with the English of engineering in their lectures and labs. Uni language centres can support these students, allowing them to be more successful in their studies, boosting satisfaction and retention, and even lowering rates of academic integrity infractions.

Many language centres also act as official or unofficial centres of expertise regarding academic language development, teaching and learning in linguistically diverse classrooms and similar topics, and may carry out training, consultation and peer support with instructors, faculty and student support staff across the institution.

Uni language centres and revenue generation

One final benefit of a university language centre to the institution is that it can be a revenue-generator, via not just its pathway EAP programs, but the other forms of language education programming that many centres also carry out. This potential isn’t always easy to realize in a challenging policy environment like the present. Even at the best of times university language centres can struggle as “third space units” with multiple mandates (academic, student service, and revenue-generating) within the university system which tends toward an academic vs. support binary when it comes to classifying activities and roles.

Realizing a university language centre’s full potential, contributing to recruitment and admissions, institutional internationalization, student academic success and revenue generation is challenging, but can be done with the right expertise involved, and if the institution makes a good faith decision to try and make it work. It’s disheartening that some universities have chosen to throw the baby out with the bathwater and shortsightedly done away with university language centres which contribute in so many ways to institutional life, and could also help them make it through this challenging moment.