A big drop in French, a significant drop in the success rate in science and technology, and, on the contrary, a great success in mathematics: the Ministry of Education’s exams in June will bring their share of concern at the end of a year marked by strikes.
Quebec released the results of the Ministry’s latest exams on Friday. While year-to-year comparisons are difficult due to reduced content over the years—for the pandemic, then because of the strike last year—the difficulties in French are palpable. And private schools are doing significantly better.
Thus, in French, in the public network, the success rate for the writing exam is only 66.9%, down 4.2 percentage points compared to last year, even though the content was lightened due to the strike, which deprived some students of a month of school. The success rate for the same ministerial exam, in private schools, is 83.8%.
In mathematics, public school students passed the June exam with a rate of 76.6%. This is a jump of 7.5 percentage points compared to the previous year, when only 69% of young people obtained a passing grade in this test.
Here again, students in the private network did significantly better: they passed the mathematics exam at a rate of 90.7%, an increase of 7.6 percentage points compared to the previous year.
In science, the success rate is 70.1% (90.8% for private schools). Before the pandemic, this rate in public schools was 74.4.