Ontario Students Among the World's Best Readers. International Test Results
Also Show Excellence and Equity Are Hallmarks of Ontario's Education System.

TORONTO, Dec. 7 /CNW/ - Ontario's are among the top-achieving students in reading according to the results of the 2009 administration of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), in which students from 75 jurisdictions around the globe, including all Canadian provinces, participated. Only Shanghai, China had better reading achievement than Ontario and the six other jurisdictions with the same results. These are among the highlights released today by the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO), which coordinated the province's participation on behalf of the Government of Ontario. The international program, which is undertaken every three years, assesses the skills of 15-year-old students in reading, mathematics and science.

The results of PISA 2009 also show that Ontario's education system has been more successful than most at developing strong reading skills in its students while at the same time reducing the effects of socio-economic challenges. Ontario is among the few jurisdictions in the world with both high achievement in reading and a relatively small performance gap between students from high- and low-income households.

"Today's results are further proof that our students are developing the reading skills they will need to participate effectively in the increasingly globalized world and workforce of the 21st century," said Brian Desbiens, Chair of EQAO's Board of Directors. "They are also evidence that Ontario's attention to literacy, early identification and tracking of struggling students and targeted interventions to support them have positioned its students in the group of top-performing students in Canada and around the world."

While Ontario students are achieving well and holding their own in relation to other countries and provinces in mathematics and science, they are not among the top global achievers in these two areas of learning. In mathematics, students from seven jurisdictions, including Quebec, performed significantly better than Ontario students, and in science, those from five other jurisdictions, including Alberta, had better results. These results are reinforced by EQAO's provincial test data, which show no substantive changes in mathematics achievement among Ontario's English-language elementary school students over the past five years.

"This newest set of data underscores the importance of continued attention to student development in math and science," stated Marguerite Jackson, Chief Executive Officer of EQAO. "Certainly Ontario's success with reading achievement is a testament to our collective ability to drive purposeful improvement in our schools."

Highlights of Ontario results are available at www.eqao.com. The OECD has published a full international report for PISA 2009, and the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, which oversaw Canada's participation in this study, has released a report on Canadian achievement.

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Backgrounder

About PISA

• The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international program initiated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to assess the achievement of 15-year-old students in three domains: reading, mathematics and science.
  
  
• PISA was first administered in 2000 and is repeated every three years, with each cycle providing detailed assessment in one of the three domains ("the major domain") and summary assessments in the other two ("the minor domains").
  
  
• In PISA 2009, reading was the major domain, whereas mathematics and science were the minor domains.
  
  
• As outlined in the framework, PISA 2009 reports results in reading on the five following subscales used on the assessment:
• accessing and retrieving
• integrating and interpreting
• reflecting and evaluating
• continuous texts
• non-continuous texts
• In 2009, 65 countries participated in the administration of PISA, including all 33 OECD countries. In Canada, about 22 000 15-year-old students from 10 provinces participated, of whom 4083 were from Ontario.

Additional Ontario Results

Reading

• Ontario's were among the top achieving students of those in the 75 jurisdictions participating in the 2009 PISA reading assessment.
  
  
• Only Shanghai, China had reading results that were significantly higher (statistically) than Ontario's and the six other jurisdictions with the same results.
  
  
• Of all Canadian provinces, Ontario was the only one with achievement significantly higher (statistically) than the Canadian average.
  
  
• Ontario students performed significantly better than the Canadian average in all five reading subscales (accessing and retrieving, integrating and interpreting, reflecting and evaluating, continuous texts, non-continuous texts).
  
  
• Of Ontario students, 92% met or exceeded PISA's achievement benchmark at which students begin to demonstrate the kind of knowledge and skills needed to use reading competencies effectively. This compares to the 91% of students in Alberta and British Columbia, the 90% of Canadian students and the 81% of students across the OECD that achieved this benchmark.

Mathematics

• Of the 75 jurisdictions participating in the 2009 PISA mathematics assessment, seven had results that were significantly higher (statistically) than Ontario's.
  
  
• Ontario's achievement in mathematics was at the Canadian average, along with British Columbia's and Alberta's.
  
  
• Of all participating Canadian provinces, only Quebec performed significantly better than Ontario.

Science

• Of the 75 jurisdictions participating in the 2009 PISA science assessment, five had results that were significantly higher (statistically) than Ontario's.
  
  
• Ontario student achievement in science was at the Canadian average, along with that of students in British Columbia, Quebec and Nova Scotia.
  
  
• Of the Canadian provinces, only Alberta performed significantly better than Ontario.

About EQAO
The Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) acts as a catalyst for increasing the success of Ontario students by measuring their achievement in reading, writing and mathematics against a common curriculum benchmark. As an independent provincial agency, EQAO plays a pivotal role by conducting province-wide tests at key points in every student's primary, junior and secondary education and reporting the results. The objective and reliable facts obtained add to the current knowledge about student learning and are an important tool for improvement at the individual, school and provincial levels. On behalf of the Government of Ontario, EQAO coordinates Ontario's participation in national and international student assessments.

For further information:

and to arrange interviews, please contact

Katia Collette
Communications Officer
416-212-7047
[email protected]