With just weeks before another school year begins, the New Brunswick government says schools will be ready to meet the high demand for French immersion.

Despite earlier shortages, it says schools now have enough teachers to deliver the program.

Earlier this year, the government was facing a potentially embarrassing situation of not having French immersion teachers in Canada’s only officially bilingual province.  That issue has been resolved for the coming school year.

French immersion was re-instated to Grade 1 in the last school year. This fall, those Grade 1 students will be entering Grade 2 and the Anglophone school districts needed more than 100 teachers capable of delivering the French immersion program.

Not long ago, some school districts were saying, that they were dozens of teachers short of their requirements. But on Tuesday, the government announced they are on track.

“I’m happy to say here today, especially for Grade 2, that we’ve hit 97 per cent, and by the school year, we'll have 100 percent,” said Education Minister Brian Kenny.

He says school districts and the province have boosted recruitment efforts to make that happen.

Qualified teachers who were teaching in other areas have been given a chance to teach in the French immersion program.

Kenny says there is a high demand for immersion teachers across the country, and New Brunswick is competing with other jurisdictions to attract those skills.

“It’s always a struggle year after year in New Brunswick when it comes to recruitment, but what I can say today, is that we're making some really good progress right across the board,” Kenny said.

The minister was not able to say how many new teachers had been hired by the school districts to fill the French immersion positions.

Province-wide, 68 schools will be offering early immersion in the coming school year.

There is still a handful of French immersion teaching positions needing to be filled and, because of the demand for French immersion, and pending teacher retirements, the government says hiring and recruitment of French immersion teachers will continue.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Mike Cameron.