Grade 12 English exams will now be set by schools after Manitoba's provincial assessments cancelled

A provincial English exam that Manitoba Grade 12 students were supposed to start writing on Monday has been shelved, and students will instead write exams set by their schools, the province says.

On Friday, the province said the four-day English language arts standards exam was suspended due to an issue with necessary permissions to use materials within the test.

Manitoba Education Minister Nello Altomare said the suspension of the provincial examcame "out of an abundance of caution regarding identification of certain Manitobans" in the exam's reading materials, in response to questions by Progressive Conservative education critic Grant Jacksonand interim Manitoba Liberal Leader Cindy Lamoureux.

"So, in order to protect their privacy we did the right thing," he said.

All Grade 12 students will write a finalEnglish exam by June 21, Altomare said.

A spokesperson later said that the schools will administer an exam of their choice and the education department will provide examples. The province is not providing a standard exam.

Grade 12 provincial exams, which were reinstated in the 2023-24 school year, were initially disrupted in2020by restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Schools have largely administered final exams themselves since then.

The former PC government said in 2022 that it would scrap the exams and instead do a Grade 10 curriculum-based assessment, followinga recommendationin a 2021 report on the kindergarten to Grade 12 school system.

After winning the October 2023 election, the NDP also revealed plans to stop administering the exams while they worked on anoverhaul of the provincial assessment system, but Altomare reversed that decision when people objected, saying the examswere needed to prepare students for post-secondary school.

Provincial exams in math and French will go ahead this spring.

Altomare said the English exam was created under the former PC government.

"It wasn't properly vetted, it wasn't properly attuned to what was necessary for students, and then when we discovered that the error was made we immediately pulled it because we had to do it for privacy purposes," he said in question period.

Elizabeth Bourbonniere, president of the Manitoba Association of Teachers of English, said her association was surprised to hear about the suspension of the test "so late in the day" Friday, which caused "a huge rush" for divisions and schools to let families know outside of school hours.

"The suspension has created uncertainty for teachers and students about what the rest of the semester will look like, and what they should be planning for as a final assessment," she said in an emailed statement to CBC on Monday.

Rawel Khattra, a Grade 12 student who wrote a different version of the provincial English exam in January, says he was surprised the suspension of the provincial exam was due to issues with permissions.

"It's pretty shocking, but I think it's harder for the teachers and stuff, too, because they do all of that preparation," he said.

"I think it's better for the students because they have more time to prepare for the exam."

John Lagman, also a Grade 12 student, is breathing a sigh of relief. He said the exam is helpful to prepare for a post-secondary education, but he's happy about the change.

"I didn't want to do it, and I'm happy that I'm not doing it," he said, and he now has more time to prepare for his school-administered exam.

'More stringent vetting'

Deputy education minister Brian O'Leary, who is also the former superintendent of the Seven Oaks School Division, said the provincial English exam in question was developed in 2019 and had not been used before.

He would not specify the issue with the test material, but saidwhen the exam was pulled out to be used this year,officials flagged a problem that posed "serious" privacy concerns as well as a potential safety risk.

"It's someone written about, where there was an assumed permission, and there in factwasn't permission," O'Leary said in a Monday interview with CBC.

He cannot recall another event like the exam suspension.

"I hope it's a one-of-a-kind [incident], and we can move on from it, and we'll probably put a little more stringent vetting into the next round of exams," he said.

"It presents some difficulty [for teachers], but nowhere near the kind of difficulties that they surmounted throughout the pandemic."

The format of the exam will be the same as it was last June,before provincial exams were reinstated, O'Learysaid.

He also said thepostponement of the exam had nothing to do withthe province's reversal of its planearlier this yearto scrap some provincial exams in grades 10 and 12.

Matt Henderson, superintendent of the Winnipeg School Division, said schools will work to reschedule the exams with the best interests of staff and students in mind.

"It'll be, really, school by school. We have 13 senior years schools and it will really depend on them," he said.

"We're early in the process, and so we'll wait and hear from Manitoba education and then we'll proceed from there."

The exam requires students to think deeply about a number of topics which are presented through a variety of materials, such as written articles and poetry, he said.

"There's a lot of materials that the teachers and the province put together as a package, so perhaps one of those wasn't necessarily licensed."

'One-of-a-kind' Grade 12 English exam postponement surprises students, educators

4 months ago

Duration 2:25

The Manitoba government says the four-day English language arts standards exam was suspended due to an issue with necessary permissions to use materials within the test. Brian O'Leary, the deputy minister of education, says he hopes the delay is a 'one-of-a-kind' incident.