Francophone student reading scores drop 20%, Cardy points to pandemic

New Brunswick's Department of Education says students have "maintained learning levels" despite the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, based on the 2020-21 provincial assessment results.

But francophone reading scores dropped nearly 20 per cent since the last evaluation in 2016, according to the annual report released Wednesday.

And math and scientific literacy were not included in the annual testing "due to pandemic-related conditions," the department said.

In a statement, Education Minister Dominic Cardy described the results as "better than expected."

English language proficiency increased 3.7 per cent to 81.8 per cent, according to the assessment.

And declines for all students in the anglophone sector were "generally minimal, below four percentage points," the department said.

On the francophone side, however, only 56.9 per cent of Grade 3 students passed a Grade 2 reading test, compared with 77.2 per cent in 2016.

Speaking with reporters, Cardy said the causes are "obvious."

"We've had three months of a nearly complete loss in 2020 when the schools were shut, interruptions through last year and more severe disruptions this year caused by the delta wave," he said.

"And then the CUPE strike added in another little cherry on top of a nasty cake."

Asked why the anglophone results would be better and francophone results worse if both systems have been affected by COVID, Cardy stressed they are separate systems and "the way that everything tends to impact them tends to be felt differently."

"You're teaching different languages, you're teaching in different schools, and using different pedagogies, and different structures, different books — the whole thing is different."

He is most concerned about the impact of the pandemic on students in kindergarten to Grade 3, he said.

"If you don't have reading levels up to an acceptable standard by the time you're out of Grade 3, the cost to the system and the difficulty for a student to catch back up again increases exponentially."