Ontario Liberals will reintroduce optional 13th grade to allow students to make up for lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, leader Stephen Del Duca said during Friday’s campaign.
The measure, which will be introduced if the Liberals are elected next month, will not be a “victory round”, the party leader said, and will be available for at least four years.
“This will be a structured option for our children,” Del Duca said in a park near Kitchener High School in Ont.
“Structured so that they can receive more support for mental health, so that they can learn more about personal finances, so that they can learn more about citizenship and the involvement of citizens and all the tools they need to they can catch up from the past few years. “
Del Duca said his government would work with teachers, principals, school boards and boards to develop curricula for the next year. The program will cost $ 295 million, he said.
Ninth-grader Tessa Jagelovic, who was among several teenagers the Liberal leader enjoyed before the announcement, said she would take advantage of an extra year at school.
“I feel that 13th grade would be like closing for me to get a full normal four years,” she said.
OSSTF President Karen Littlewood said tackling the shortage of teachers in the province would be a key component of the pandemic education recovery plan. (CBC)
“It’s a great idea as a recovery plan, but I don’t know how you’re going to implement it in four months,” said Karen Littlewood, president of the Ontario High School Teachers Federation (OSSTF).
Littlewood said that while students don’t necessarily need 13th grade, “they need to have full experience in high school.”
She said to deal with shortage of teachers in the province will be a key component of the pandemic education recovery plan, as well as ensuring that school boards receive adequate credit funding for all students who remain for another year.
Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford, who is seeking re-election in June, was asked twice about the idea of returning to optional 13, but did not respond directly.
“We’re pouring money into education,” Ford said in Bowmanville, Ont. “We are building new schools … and renovating them for $ 14 billion and providing better education with more funding for education.”
Ontario was the only province to have five years in high school until it was eliminated under Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Mike Harris. Class 13, officially called the Ontario Academic Credit of 1984 – colloquially known as the OAC – began to be phased out with 9th graders in 1999 and was eliminated in 2003 at the same time.
Liberals who want to improve their status as a third country in their election also promise to hire another 1,000 mental health professionals for students and staff.
“We’ve seen this over the last four years, how so many of our children have been isolated, challenged, behaved,” Del Duca said. “We need more mental health care in our schools.”
The party is also proposing to hire another 5,000 special education staff, expand the student meal program offering free breakfast, end streaming and remove EQAO standardized tests, and replace it with a new assessment strategy.
“It was crystal clear that many of our children had fallen behind,” Del Duca said. “In fact, we don’t even have an adequate way to measure the impact of training during COVID.”
The new evaluation regime will be developed after consultation with experts, he said, to be deployed as soon as possible.
Del Duca released other plans for its educational platform this week, including building 200 new schools and renovating another 4,500, hiring another 10,000 teachers and limiting class sizes to 20 for all classes.
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