The Ontario Ministry of Education has decided to stop administering a controversial test for new teachers in the Canadian province and replace it with an induction program.
The test was adopted by the previous Tory administration in 2002. But in a recent letter, Education Minister Gerard Kennedy, a member of the Liberal Party, said it has made only a “limited contribution to readying new teachers for the classroom.”
The decision means that close to 10,000 new teachers won’t have to take the four-hour test this year.
The induction initiative, Mr. Kennedy wrote, will include “mentoring, increased professional-development opportunities, and other resources to supplement preservice training.” The ministry is working with school boards and school of education faculties to craft the new program.
A new assessment of teachers would then be devised and given at the end of the first year of teaching.
