Education Minister Mildred Dover advised today that recent meetings of education ministers have resulted in several new priorities that strongly support PEI's direction in education and training.
A new Council of Atlantic Ministers of Education and Training (CAMET) was officially announced today to strengthen cooperation between public and post-secondary education, and foster Atlantic positions on national issues. CAMET has established three initial priorities. They are to enhance curriculum and programs, student performance, and post-secondary education in Atlantic Canada.
At a meeting of the Council of Ministers of Education (CMEC) yesterday in Toronto, Canada's ministers of education committed to work together to place education at the forefront of the Canadian agenda. Ministers will aggressively pursue a common education agenda to improve student success and education systems. Among their initial priorities are literacy rates, Aboriginal education and children with special educational needs.
Minister Dover advised that a major portion of the national meeting was devoted to the topic of inclusion and special educational needs. A new study presented by Statistics Canada showed that Prince Edward Island, which uses an inclusionary model, leads the country in several indicators of quality special education. "Prince Edward Island students with cognitive and emotional disabilities lead the country in terms of literacy rates. We have the lowest number of segregated special needs classes, and the highest level of parent satisfaction with access to special education services," said the minister. "We are very pleased that the major investments we've made in this area are now showing excellent results."
Minister Dover said that, through leadership provided by Prince Edward Island at the CMEC meetings, the national Student Achievement Indicators Program (SAIP), will continue next year to assess the reading skills of Canadian 13-year-olds. "We were pleased to have been able to get agreement among ministers to continue with this valuable program," said Minister Dover. "We have participated since 1993 in this annual assessment of 13-year-olds and 16-year-olds across Canada in reading and writing, mathematics, and science. We use the knowledge from the assessment to continuously improve programs, report on student performance, and initiate further study where appropriate."