New numbers show students enrolling in french-speaking schools in Alberta is up from previous years.

Michael Tryon, the Executive Director of Canadian Parents For French Alberta says they’ve traditionally seen between 0.5 and two per cent growth per year but had a four per cent jump last year.

He tells 660News, 90-95 per cent of parents in their organization speak english yet they chose to put kids in a french program because they recognize a second language is important in the global economy.

Tryon says Canadian students are competing against kids who speak multiple languages and that’s leaving our kids behind so we must keep language programs going to be competitive.

He adds, other reasons for the growth include the addition of new programs and the expansion of existing ones along with the fact they are retaining more junior high and high school students in french programs.

A new study shows over 225,000 Albertans including Premier Redford and House Speaker Gene Zwozdesky are bilingual.

Six per cent of all students from K-12 in Alberta are doing their studies in french.