Minority and Second Language Education, Elementary and Secondary Levels (MSLEES)

Detailed information for 1998-1999

This survey is designed to collect information on minority and second language programs offered in public and private elementary and secondary schools.

Starting with the 1999-2000 reference year, this survey will collect information on official language programmes offered in independent elementary and secondary schools only. These data will be used by the Department of Canadian Heritage to establish the amount of federal contributions to independent schools through the Official Languages in Education Programme. No public use microdata file will be produced by Statistics Canada for this survey.

All other data will be collected by the Elementary-Secondary Education Statistics Project (ESESP-see "Documentation" below). ESESP is a national survey that enables Statistics Canada to provide information on enrolments (including minority and second language, Aboriginal and special needs programs), graduates, educators and finance of Canadian elementary-secondary public educational institutions.

Data release - May 22, 2001 (in the publication "Education in Canada", online catalogue number 81-229-XIB)

• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy
• Documentation

Description

This survey is designed to collect information on minority and second language programs offered in public and private elementary and secondary schools. Three levels of second language programs are collected: Minority Language Instruction (Francophone schools outside of Quebec, Anglophone schools in Quebec), Second Language Immersion (more than 25% of instruction is in second language) and Second Language Instruction (less than 25% of instruction is in second language).

Each academic year Statistics Canada or the provincial Departments of Education mail minority and second language forms for completion by all principals of public and private elementary and secondary schools offering such programs. The departments provide Statistics Canada with copies of the files. Data for language program funding, as well as a full address of all private schools for funding purposes, are provided to the Ministry of Canadian Heritage.

Reference period: Academic year

Subjects

• Education, training and learning
• Languages

Data sources and methodology

Target population

Public and private elementary and secondary schools in Canada which offer minority and second language programs.

Instrument design

The questionnaire, first developed in 1972, was designed as a paper-pencil instrument that is mailed to the principal of the school who then fills it in and mails it back.

Sampling

This survey is a census with a cross-sectional design.

Data are collected for all units of the target population, therefore, no sampling is done.

Data sources

Responding to this survey is voluntary.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents and extracted from administrative files.

This survey is designed to collect information on minority and second language programs offered in public elementary and secondary schools. Each academic year Statistics Canada or the provincial departments of education mail minority and second language forms for completion by all principals of public elementary and secondary schools offering such programs. The departments provide Statistics Canada with copies of the files. Data for language program funding is provided to Canadian Heritage as well as a full address of all private schools for funding purposes.

• Additional documentation

Error detection

Administrative data are converted by Statistics Canada into a format comparable with data from other sources. Manual and computer edits including consistency checks are carried out by Statistics Canada. Problems identified with editing procedures are resolved by comparison with prior years' data and by communicating wiht respondents involved.

Imputation

Estimations are derived with consultations with respective respondents using a combination of trend data and known data properties.

Estimation

This methodological step does not apply to this survey.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects which could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

Collected data are published in aggregated form at the provincial level.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

This methodology does not apply to this survey.

Data accuracy

The coverage error could range between 0% and 2% since some schools that receive the questionnaire may refuse to report, or due to missing information based on human error.

Documentation

• Elementary-Secondary Education Statistics Project (ESESP)
  • Format: Elementary-Secondary Education Statistics Project (ESESP) - HTML[HTML]