L-R  Spencer Wilmot; CME, Eleanor “ Tu’Ti” Bernard; MK, Danny Paul; Author, Valerie Marshall-Bowers; Special Education Consultant, MK

The above pictured Scholars and Educators, were among an illustrious group invited to the “Education Partners Forum.”  The site was the CEC High School in Truro, NS on Feb. 18 & 19, 2005.  This Forum brought together about 500 individuals from across Nova Scotia to discuss new concepts on how to achieve higher student outcomes.  Previous Canadian studies have shown that the NS Public School system has scored below the average national test results in Literacy and Numeracy.

This Forum then looked at what approaches could be implemented to increase these scores.  These approaches were contained in a consultants’ report that looked at other primary-12 programs across the country to identify “best practices” from high scoring provinces.  The greatest fear expressed by many of the Forum participants, was that the plan was already in place and this forum would be used to validate it.  The Education Minister ensured the group that their voices would be listened to and that a “Forum Proceedings Summary” would be distributed to all attendees.  This may/or would be in the form of a posting on the Department of Education web-site.

MK clearly stated to the forum that all these steps have to ho beyond blaming students for these results and to look at making changes System wide.  Examples such as: content delivery models that explore and use different delivery models to reflect the different learning styles of students especially the native ones.  All schools have to reach out to the Parents and the Communities to become active partners in the schooling of our Children.  A link to this proceedings summary will be made available in the future.

John J. Paul

Director of Programs and Services, MK

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 1st, 2005 at 11:17 am and is filed under General.