CMEC to Release Major Report on the Performance of Canadian Students in Science, Math, and Reading

TORONTO, Oct. 2, 2014 /CNW/ - The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), will be presenting results from its latest assessment of the performance of Canadian Grade 8 students (Secondary II in Quebec) on October 7, 2014.

The Pan-Canadian Assessment Program (PCAP) provides Canada with a report card in three core subjects: science, mathematics, and reading. PCAP 2013 tested approximately 32,000 students from over 1,500 schools across the country. Science was the major focus in 2013.

Of particular interest to media:

• PCAP and the School Achievement Indicators Program (SAIP), from which PCAP was developed, have been providing statistically valid, comparable data on student performance in Canada since 1993.
• PCAP 2013 offers a pan-Canadian portrait of student achievement, as well as results by province and territory, by gender, and by official language.
• PCAP is a cyclical assessment, first administered in 2007 and subsequently in 2010 and again in 2013. With PCAP 2013, results over time for student performance in mathematics and reading will be reported.
• PCAP was developed to complement key international assessments such as OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to maximize testing efficiency and enable validation of our results at the international level.

Preliminary program for October 7, 2014

5 a.m. EDT	PCAP 2013 report made available on-line http://cmec.ca/9/Publications/index.html Twitter hashtag: #pcap13
9 a.m. EDT onward	Individual interviews in English or French The Honourable Gordon Dirks,  Chair of CMEC and Minister of Education for Alberta Dr. Andrew Parkin, Director General of CMEC

About CMEC
Founded in 1967, CMEC is the collective voice of Canada's ministers of education. It provides leadership in education at the pan-Canadian and international levels and contributes to the exercise of the exclusive jurisdiction of provinces and territories over education. For more information, visit us at www.cmec.ca.

SOURCE: Council of Ministers of Education, Canada

Colin Bailey, Director, Communications, Cell: 416-938-1911, Tel.: [phone], ext. 259, E-mail: [email protected]; Twitter: @CCMEC