Manitoba earns a "D" on "How Canada performs: Education and Skills" report card

OTTAWA, June 26, 2014 /CNW/ - Manitoba earns a "D" grade and ranks 17th among the 26 jurisdictions on the Education and Skills report card. This is the first "How Canada Performs: Education and Skills" report card to look at provincial performance in an international context.

"Manitoba compares favourably with peer countries on the share of the overall population that have completed high school and college," said Michael Bloom, Vice-President, Industry and Business Strategy. "On the downside, Manitoba students perform poorly on reading, math and science skills compared to other provinces and international peers."

Manitoba gets an "A" grade for the share of the population aged 25-64 that has completed college. The province gets another "A" on high-school attainment, where 86 per cent of Manitobans have completed high school. However, the Aboriginal population still lags significantly on high-school attainment.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Manitoba earns "A" grades on high school and college attainment.
• Manitoba has a small gap between the math scores of Canadian-born and immigrant students.
• Manitoba students did not perform well on reading, math and science tests, earning five "D" grades and one "C" grade.

Manitoba gets an additional "A" grade on the equity in learning outcomes indicator, which measures the gap in math performance between Canadian-born and immigrant students. Over 23 per cent of the test takers in Manitoba were immigrant students. This result bodes well for the province as it actively seeks to attract new immigrants.

Manitoba students did not perform well on the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test of 15-year olds, achieving one "C" grade and five "D" grades on student scores for reading, math and science skills. Manitoba earned slightly better grades in measures of adult skills, earning two "B"s and four "C"s for its scores on literacy, numeracy and problem-solving in technology-rich environments.

Manitoba gets a "C" grade for its relatively small share of the population with a university degree. The province earns another "C" for having a relatively large gender gap in tertiary education — more women earn university and college degrees than do men. Like most of the provinces, Manitoba gets low grades for the number of PhD students graduating in 2011 ("D-") and the number of math, science, computer science and engineering students graduating in 2011 ("D-").

How Canada Performs is an ongoing research program at The Conference Board of Canada to help leaders identify relative strengths and weaknesses in Canada's socio-economic performance. The How Canada Performs website presents data and analysis on Canada's performance compared to peer countries in six performance categories: Economy, Innovation, Environment, Education and Skills, Health, and Society.

Released today, and building on previous "How Canada Performs" analyses, the Education and Skills report card is the second of six to be produced over the next year on Canadian and provincial socio-economic performance. The Economy report card was published in May 2014. The remaining report cards will follow over the next year.

This is the first year that provincial rankings are included in the report cards. Data sources and report card methodology can be found on the How Canada Performs website.

SOURCE: Conference Board of Canada

Yvonne Squires, Media Relations, Tel.: [phone] ext. 221, E-mail: [email protected]