Do Ontario students need to learn how to change a flat tire? Chop food? Province wants to know

A classroom is seen at an elementary school in Toronto on Tuesday, January 9, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

What does fixing a flat tire, safely cooking meat, and talking to a landlord have in common? According to Ontario’s education, they’re all life skills that will set students up for success.

But which ones are worth teaching in the classroom? A new online survey by the provincial government aims to answer just that.

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The province’s new “equipping students with practical life skills” survey is asking respondents which practical life skills they think are most important and worth adding to the curriculum.

Broken up into three parts, the survey released last week focuses on personal health and safety skills, household management skills, and time management and technological skills. Within those sections, respondents are asked to rank skills like sewing buttons, replacing caulking, and delegating tasks to family or friends based on how important they think they are for students to learn in school.

In a statement to CTV News Toronto, Education Minister Jill Dunlop said the provincial government is looking forward to receiving feedback from schools, parents and students on what should be included in the new “modern approach” to home economics.

“Our government will continue to support all students in our schools to achieve their full potential by making the investments and modernization they need to learn the life, job, and critical thinking skills to succeed in today’s modern economy including financial skills, budgeting along with our back-to-basics approach including reading, writing and math,” she wrote. “This includes bringing back a new home economics course that infuses life skills like cooking, nutrition and first aid.”

The survey will inform the province's forthcoming revamped home economics program, which then-education minister Stephen Lecce teased within an education overhaul announced in May. Financial literacy was also included in what he called a “back-to-basics” approach to learning.

"Some of the practical life skills students may want to learn that we hear so often from the parents and employers and from students is the need to learn how to cook and understand good nutrition; basic skills like changing a tire, sewing a button, signing a cheque, knowing how to shop on a budget and applying basic first aid," Lecce said at the time. "We're making these changes to help students prepare for a life even well beyond the classroom."

The consultation period for the survey closes at 5 p.m. on Oct. 1.

Education advocate 'surprised' by survey’s inclusion of some skills

Some other skills featured in the provincial survey are bicycle maintenance and food preparation, both valuable in their own right, but “surprisingly” included in the public consultation, says People for Education executive director Annie Kidder.

“I have to say, I was very surprised when I saw the list of possible skills, because I thought they would be more broadly applicable than these ones,” Kidder said, noting that the practical skills being taught to students should be focused on those needed to “live in 2024,” some of which could be embedded throughout all their courses.

“They talk about time management [in the survey]. Well, that's something that kids should start learning in kindergarten and should be learning every single year as they go along. That is a core, vital skill. And it's not something you've learned separately all by itself,” she explained.

Kidder also said that it’s vitally important that students learn about artificial intelligence (AI) and the rapid pace of technology – which is included in the survey – holistically and earlier than high school, especially as they use those tools to obtain the skills the Ministry of Education says they want to learn.

“What you should be learning in school is how to manage and understand the vast amount of information there is out there. So when you go to YouTube to learn how to fix a tire on your bicycle, you'll know this is a reputable source of information, and that your tire on your bike will be fixed well, but it's most important that you actually learn that about the about all the information that's out there,” she said.

With files from Joshua Freeman