About a third of Ontario's 170,000 Grade 10 students failed to pass a basic literacy test administered last year. Ontario government documents obtained by The Canadian Press show that 29 per cent of students failed either one or both of the reading and writing segments of the standardized two-day tests administered in October.
Only 61 per cent of the students passed both portions of the test; the remaining 10 per cent of students either deferred the test or were absent for one or both days.
"These results are unacceptable," said an official with the Ministry of Education who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We will be working with the school boards to ensure that boards are taking steps to improve; it is important that every student who graduates from high school can read and write."
The Ontario Conservatives introduced the standardized test last year in an effort to get a sense of how the province's high school students were faring.
A new, more stringent curriculum designed to give students more of an education in basic language skills is in place, but the students who took the test would not have studied under it, said the ministry official.
The province has also introduced new remedial programs to help those students who struggled with the test, the official added.Source.
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