Commentary
There’s a lot going on in British Columbia. The government has called a snap election, the kids are back to school, the quality of education in the province is deteriorating, and we now have the test scores to prove it.
According to the new Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results released this month, math scores in B.C. declined by 14 points from 2018 to 2025 (the latest year of PISA data). For context, PISA equates 20 points to approximately one grade level, which means B.C. students are more than half a grade level behind in their math skills than they were eight years ago. And during the same time period, reading skills declined by 25 points, which means that B.C. students are more than one full grade level lower in their reading skills than they were in 2018.
The key question—why?
These significant declines in math and reading skills occurred after three specific policy changes, which fundamentally reshaped B.C.’s education system.
First, in 2016 the BC Liberal government introduced a new curriculum, which put less emphasis on subject-specific knowledge and focused instead on themes such as “critical thinking,” “creativity,” and “communication.” But in practical terms, this means the new curriculum deprives B.C. students of the content-rich instruction they need to properly understand each subject. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the new social studies curriculum guides, which relegate Canadian history to “big ideas” such as “Canada is made up of many diverse regions and communities.” It’s almost entirely up to each teacher to decide what specific Canadian history facts they wish to cover.
Again, when curriculum guides lack content, students suffer because background knowledge about a subject is closely tied to reading comprehension. Simply put, if we want students to understand what they read, they need substantial background knowledge about a wide variety of topics. That won’t happen if teachers must use substandard curriculum guides.
Another major policy shift is in standardized testing. Until about 10 years ago, all B.C. high school students had to write course knowledge-based exams that were mandatory for graduation. Starting in the 2017/18 school year, the provincial government replaced these exams with general literacy and numeracy assessments that no longer count toward students’ final marks. And while these assessments are ostensibly still mandatory, the share of students writing them has dropped to only about 80 percent.
Here’s why that’s a problem. Standardized exams are an important measurement tool that encourage teachers to cover the entire curriculum in a course. Now that students no longer write exams based on course content, it’s much easier for teachers to skip parts of a course they would rather not cover. Combine this was a substandard curriculum guide, and you have a recipe for failure.
As a final policy blow, the NDP government recently replaced percentage and letter grades on all K–9 report cards with nebulous descriptors such as “emerging,” “extending,” “developing,” and “proficient.” These confusing terms make it harder for parents to understand how their children are doing in school.
In fact, according to a 2024 Leger poll, more than half of B.C. parents said that terms such as “extending” were unclear and difficult to understand. And two-thirds of parents were unable to pick the correct definition of “extending” out of a list of options. This stands in sharp contrast to the more than 90 percent of parents who found letter grades such as “A” and “B” easy to understand.
Vague curriculum guides, lower quality exams, and unclear report card grades form a perfect trifecta of poor education policy. No wonder B.C. students are struggling and academic scores are going downhill.
If the next B.C. government—or any political stripe—is serious about improving education in this province, it should reverse these three major policy errors. Give teachers proper curriculum guides, bring back rigorous knowledge-based exams, and use clear terminology on report cards. Students deserve an education system that provides them with the knowledge and skills they need to be successful. This is the only way to get B.C.’s failing education system back on track.
Michael Zwaagstra is a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
