Editor, The Times:
The Program for International Student Assessment is an international assessment of randomly selected 15-year-olds in a large number of jurisdictions around the world.
The most recent results published indicate that, while students in many Canadian provinces are declining in math ability, students in B.C. and Quebec remain competitive with students in other top-performing education systems.
These results demonstrate British Columbia continues to be held as one of the premier public-education systems in the world.
Few jurisdictions demonstrate the same continued success spanning many governments as the only consistent factor in the system are the teachers who work within it.
These results invalidate the provincial government’s need to reform a system that continues to perform well. In fact, it is these reform movements across Canada that are causing harm to the education of students in other provinces.
Like any system, the public-education system needs stability and funding, rather than continual change.
To avoid the trend that education systems in other provinces have shown, the provincial government needs to provide true stability in B.C.’s public-education system.
This can be done by restoring classroom and learning conditions, providing genuine support for teachers and providing appropriate funding to school boards to avoid continual reduction in programs.
David Komljenovic
B.C. Teachers’ Federation
executive committee
Kamloops, B.C.
