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By paNOW Staff

student assessment

Sask. discontinuing Grade 12 provincial exams

Apr 4, 2025 | 1:22 PM

Grade 12 students in Saskatchewan won’t have to worry about cramming for their final exams.

The province announced that it will be winding down the provincial examination program at the end of August 2025, saying it creates a more equitable system for Grade 12 students in the province.

Saskatchewan is currently the only province where some students are required to write provincial examinations in certain subjects while others are not. In the 2023-24 school year, only 25 per cent of students needed to complete a provincial exam.

“The discontinuation of Provincial Exams, starting in September 2025, aligns with feedback that I have received directly from school board trustees, teachers and families all across this province,” Education Minister Everett Hindley said.

Director of Education for the Saskatchewan Rivers Public School Division in Prince Albert, Neil Finch said, “We are happy to see this change because it levels the playing field for all Grade 12 students. In our division, some students had to write provincial exams while others did not. The Saskatchewan Rivers student representatives wrote to the Ministry in 2023 addressing these inequities, and their voices have been heard. We support moving to a more consistent and meaningful way of assessing students.”

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As the exam program ends, the province will continue to develop the Saskatchewan Student Assessment program (SSA) that was announced in November 2024. When implemented, the SSA will provide parents, students and teachers with a snapshot of student performance in Grades 5 and 9 mathematics and Grades 4, 7 and 10 English language arts as well as a common understanding of what it means to be at grade level. The SSA program is being developed as part of the Provincial Education Plan.

“School boards welcome this announcement and appreciate that the government has listened to feedback on this matter,” Saskatchewan School Boards Association (SSBA) President Dr. Shawn Davidson said. “Our membership passed resolutions in 2011 and again in 2021 that called for the elimination of provincial examinations for Grade 12 students. This is an important shift toward more meaningful assessment practices that take the needs of individual students into account while maintaining curricular integrity.”

The government said the goals of the SSA program are to provide a fair and objective measure of how students are doing, help guide instruction and assist schools, school systems and government in improving student achievement.

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panews@pattisonmedia.com