Ontario to offer remote learning for 2022-23 school year, restart EQAO tests for primary grades

Stephen Lecce, Minister of Education for Ontario makes an announcement during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto on Wednesday, January 12, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

The Ontario government says schools across the province will resume EQAO standardized testing this spring after a two-year hiatus, and that an online learning option will be offered for at least one more additional school year.

Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce made the announcements during a news conference on Thursday, which detailed the government’s 2022-23 school-year budget and “Learning Recovery Action Plan” to support students struggling with learning loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said the Grade 3 and 6 EQAO assessments will restart this spring after a two-year pause due to the pandemic. The resumption plan, the government says, is to identify areas of learning loss due to the pandemic in different regions in Ontario.

“Given the stress of the past two years we now are at a point where we believe we need to be able to better understand the problem, which is why measurement tools are critical,” Lecce told reporters at the news conference.

The minister said that remote learning will remain an option for students for another year due to the evolving nature of the pandemic. He said the government is investing more money to develop online learning infrastructure and hire more temporary staff.

“The priority of this government is in-class learning there's nothing more important to the mental, physical and social emotional health of a child than to be in school with their peers, with their friends, in front of our educators,” Lecce said. “But at the end of day, we appreciate that it is a choice parents will make and students will make the best decision for themselves.”

“We will continue to make sure the quality of online learning remains very high in this province for those that choose it.”

The minister also provided details about the 2022-23 budget on Thursday. The education ministry provides operating funding to 72 school boards and 10 school authorities through its two funding streams, the Grants for Student Needs (GSN) and the Priorities and Partnership Funding (PPF).

The government said this year it will provide a projected $26.1 billion in GSN funding, and $500 million in PPF funding. Roughly $600 million of that money will go toward the government’s learning recovery plan, which aims to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic’s toll on students’ learning, resilience and mental well-being.

Its “key investments,” the ministry said, is its pandemic-related support, which promises $15 million toward summer support programs, $11 million for de-streaming implementation support and $25 million for reading intervention support.

An additional $1.4 million will be allocated to expand year-round online tutoring supports, the education minister said.

Funding towards students’ resilience and mental well-being promotion will increase by $10 million, bringing the total to $90 million. The ministry will require “mandatory professional development on student resilience and mental well-being for educators.”