Elementary and Secondary ESL programs within BC

I'd also share Myra's and Lucy's concerns about the confounding variables for this research question; many potentially challenging to control for, but I wouldn't quite dismiss them as 'impossible' just yet. The bottom line is this: there are of course varying degrees of either English or French proficiency among immigrants who are seeking permanent residency in Canada, and like someone else said in another thread somewhere (sorry there just too many to find it), there are also numerous application categories to which an immigrant may identify with; including familial ties, previous professional and/or trade experience, etc.

I started a thread with a couple possible questions a few days ago, and I missed the mark a little bit in terms of addressing the right topic: admission vs settlement... That in mind, I can see us going down a similar path here in Hiram's thread; though English/French proficiency may not be the 'deal breaker' on the success of an immigrant's application to get in to BC, it certainly may play a role in the immigrant's ability to demonstrate successful integration into his/her community when applying for permanent residency. I don't think I'm making too large an assumption when I say those who can't speak English or French all that well in BC will on average, not receive a high paying job; a unit of analysis we can easily identify with 'successful settlement'.

That being said, ESL programs are prevalent not only in the public school system, but are abundantly available in the form of night classes etc, for adults to take in their transition from 'landed immigrant' to 'permanent resident' or Canadian citizen. However, like many of you have suggested, ESL programs are not the only option out there for the immigrants; a variety of colleges and other institutions accept applicants on a roling basis, offering a variety of language instruction, like the services offered here. Perhaps we can tweak the questions a bit so that a larger base of respondents could identify with the question of where/how much/how helpful language instruction was in getting a 'higher paying' job then what you could have got first stepping on Canadian soil?

I'm not saying everyone's shutting down Hiram's thread, but there is definitely a 'negative' trend, so I thought I'd mix this up a little for scholarly purposes, and point out that this idea, once tweaked a little could actually be a worth while path to explore earnestly.