New Brunswick’s Education Minister spent months consulting with parents and visiting schools to come up with new ideas for a better education plan, after the release of a new “green paper” report.
Education Minister Dominic Cardy says the green paper aims to support teachers, engage and challenge students, including creating better communication policies and partnering with universities and industries to provide more opportunities to students post-graduation.
The report states, research shows that differences in development can be profound between younger children, and every student develops in his or her own time and at their own level.
“There are few activities in life where people are grouped based on their age,” said Cardy. “In order to provide students with the skills they need to be life-long learners, they need to receive support and have opportunities to excel.”
Meanwhile, the president of the New Brunswick Teacher’s Association says they will need more time to review the paper before making any comments on its content.
Rick Cuming says the NBTA was not consulted before the paper was released on Thursday.
“We’ve had no direct input into the generation of the document and there is significant elements in this green paper that we need time to process and possibly consult with our elected teacher representatives,” he said.
Cuming says the document came as a surprise to them, and as a result, he says they haven’t had a lot of time to review the paper.
“There are elements that I think teachers will like, and there are elements that they may be concerned with, but we really need time to process all of these significant elements,” he said.
Cuming says he is urging teachers to provide feedback on the report.
“The Minister of Education is looking forward to getting information from teachers and he has that line of communication with them. We look forward at the education summit for sure, continuing our discussions with the department and bringing forth all of the issues and challenges in the system,” he said.
Cuming says the association will be able to provide more comments during the summit being held from October 16th to 18th.
With files from Tara Clow.
