Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I wish to honour my commitment to keep this Legislature informed about the national agenda in education and our participation in it.
The Ministers of Education from across this country met in Charlottetown a few weeks ago and made a joint declaration concerning the importance of partnership, excellence and accountability in education.
In late May 1994, the Council of Ministers of Education Canada facilitated the first ever national consultation on education where 495 delegates attended. An attempt was made to involve all sectors of Canadian society: students, educators, trustees, government and education agencies, business and labour, as well as 10 organizations representing the interests of groups such as native Canadians, women and the disabled. The conference identified a number of broad areas for activity.
First, the participants agreed that a national report on education should be developed. People said this report should contain information on the state of education and provide a comparison to education in other countries. People across Canada recognize the challenges we all face in reforming and improving the present education system in this country.
Secondly, Madam Speaker, the Ministers of Education agreed to continue with the school achievement indicators program. This program will become part of the national report on education. You will recall that in 1993, a math test was administered across Canada. Last spring, a reading and writing assessment took place, and we plan to administer a science assessment this spring. Detailed information on the reading and writing assessment should be available in December.
We anticipate that based on preliminary results, we will be close to the national average for writing, but lower in reading abilities. These assessments give us an indication of the performance of our system compared to our curriculum expectations and to the performance of students across the country. The results will help us to identify problem areas and plan for improvements in our systems to better serve our students. Members will recall that we are developing a numeracy and literacy strategy designed to help improve our students' performance in these critical areas.
Further, Madam Speaker, the declaration the Ministers of Education agreed and stated that "we jointly want to have the highest quality education based on shared and relevant goals, and to demonstrate accountability for achieving them." We realized that in order to achieve this goal and to make this part of our national report on education, we needed a solid base of information. As a result, a joint CMEC/Statistics Canada project was announced to develop better measurements of the performance of the education systems across the country. Specific suggestions regarding the content and format of a pan-Canadian education indicators program will be brought to the Ministers for consideration in the spring of 1995. Identified indicator areas would include academic achievement, accessibility, student flows, school to work transitions, citizenship and public satisfaction.
The third area Ministers agreed to was the need to further both research and planning in the area of distance education and open learning. The Ministers agreed to work on developing a basis for coordination and collaboration in this area. All Ministers see this as a way to increase access to education in a cost-effective manner. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
---Applause