An English-medium education system is one that uses English as the primary medium of instruction—particularly where English is not the mother tongue of the students. Initially this is associated with the expansion of English from its homeland in England and the lowlands of Scotland and its spread to the rest of Great Britain and Ireland, beginning in the sixteenth century. The rise of the British Empire increased the language's spread to British colonies and in many of these it has remained the medium of education. The increased economic and cultural influence of the United States since World War II has also furthered the global spread of English, as has the rapid spread of Internet and other technologies. As a result of this, in many states throughout the world where English is not the predominant language there are English-medium schools. Also in higher education, due to the recent trend towards internationalization, an increasing number of degree courses, particularly at Master's level, are being taught through the medium of English. Known as English-Medium Instruction (EMI), or ICLHE (Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education), this rapidly growing phenomenon has been contested in many contexts. By country Canada Education is a provincial matter under the Canadian constitution, section 92. French language rights have been guaranteed in the province of Quebec since the Treaty of Paris 1763, French outside of Quebec and all other minority languages have faced laws against them at one time or another. English-only education laws were gradually rolled out across Canada during the nineteenth and twentieth century, culminating in the Manitoba Schools Question 1896 and Regulation 17 in Ontario in 1912, which both attacked French and other European minority languages, and the Indian residential schools system which attacked Aboriginal languages. These policies were gradually abolished in the wake of Canada's adoption of official bilingualism (French/English) in 1969 and multiculturalism in 1971, but English remains the predominant language of education outside of Quebec and New Brunswick. Wales The Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542, passed by the Parliament of England, annexing Wales to the Kingdom of England are sometimes known as the "Acts of Union." An often quoted example of the effects on the Welsh language is the first section of the 1535 Act, which states: "the people of the same dominion have and do daily use a speche nothing like ne consonant to the naturall mother tonge used within this Realme"