Minister of education

Minister lauds College accomplishments

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne and College Chair Don Cattani chat with Council member Alison Morawek following the September Council meeting.

Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne, in her annual address to the College Council on September 25, said that restoring the naturally positive relationship between the government and education sector has been critical to accomplishments such asraising graduation rates, improving student achievement and lowering class sizes.

The Minister said that all her Ministry’s initiatives are aimed at meeting three goals – increasing student achievement, closing the achievement gap between kids who do well and those who don’t and continuing to build public confidence in the education system.

The Minister thanked the College for expediting changes to the Teachers’ Qualifications Regulation that would increase labour mobility for supervisory officers.

“We need the best and the most qualified and strongest leaders in the system. We need to help our principals and vice-principals to develop into the best possible instructional leaders and we need to attract the right people to the principalship, to administration.”

The Minister congratulated the College on a number of initiatives, including completing reviews of our registration practices and accreditation processes. She said Ministry staff are reviewing the accreditation report and its recommendations and will be discussing them with the College.

She also expressed appreciation for contributions to building capacity in the education system on American Sign Language and Langue des signes québécoise.

“We’ve been working with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community to increase capacity and choices for families in the system so I want to thank you for that and encourage you to continue to work on those issues,” she said.

The Minister noted the additional pressure on all regulated professions in to agree to full labour mobility by August 2009 with the Council of Federations’ directive to the provinces to amend the agreement on internal trade to allow “certificate-for-certificate mobility.”

She encouraged the College to continue discussions with other provinces on how teacher registration policies and requirements can be reconciled to meet the August 2009 deadline.

“When we are engaged in this province in trying to find ways for foreign-trained professionals to come to this country and to have barriers to their employment removed, I think it’s hard to explain why there are significant barriers among the provinces.”