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B.C. Education Minister Mike Bernier is pictured at the B.C. Legislature in Victoria, B.C., on July 30, 2015.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Globe and Mail

Provincial exams for the high-school years are being streamlined as part of British Columbia's new education curriculum changes, while the government says the controversial Foundation Skills Assessment could also be on the table.

Standardized provincial exams have been in place for decades in B.C., with the results shaping students' final grades, their ability to get into postsecondary education programs and their access to scholarship funding.

Starting in the next school year, there will be only two provincial exams for the senior years – for literacy and math – so students' grades will be determined largely by classroom examinations. This year's Grade 12 students will still have to sit for five provincial exams, which include science, social studies and language arts.

"Teachers know their students best," Education Minister Mike Bernier said on Thursday.

The Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA), which is administered in Grades 4 and 7, is on the table, but no decision has been reached.

Backing down on the FSA tests – which critics say are unnecessary and unfairly used to rank schools – would be a major retreat for the province's Liberal government, which until now has staunchly defended the standardized tests.

The three-year overhaul of the provincial curriculum aims to modernize the education system, promising to be less prescriptive while putting more emphasis on critical thinking and communication skills. For students in kindergarten through Grade 9, the new curriculum will be in place by this September, while the changes for Grades 10 to 12 will be fully implemented in the 2017-18 school year.

"Because of the new curriculum, we are looking at how to be more – I don't want to say flexible; it's really looking at the skill sets that students have. So it's not just having to cram and memorize for provincial exams, it's looking at the skill sets they have in the classroom," Mr. Bernier said.

"We know the world is changing, we know our education system has to change with it."

The provincial tests have long been opposed by the B.C. Teachers' Federation, and union president Jim Iker applauded the changes on Thursday. "Seeing the end of that is welcome news for teachers."

Mr. Iker said standardized tests narrowed the scope of what teachers could offer their students because so much time was spent in preparation.

"It started to narrow the curriculum. The focus was on the content of the exam itself rather than the whole process of hands-on learning and creative thinking skills," he said. "Social studies and sciences are critical areas we want our students to be passionate about, and we saw these tests having a negative impact on student motivation."

Until now, the government has maintained that standardized testing allows parents and teachers to detect where additional help is required, and gives the government the ability to measure trends in learning. But Mr. Bernier said the broader objective of modernizing the education system requires a different measuring stick.

The ministry will also launch a consultation with parents over the summer to determine whether the current system of reporting on student progress needs to change. Mr. Bernier said he has heard from parents who want more frequent reporting so that they are not waiting months before they find out if there are concerns about how their children are learning.

MLA Rob Fleming, the New Democrats' education critic, said he is concerned that the province hasn't yet worked out just what will be in the two remaining provincial exams for the senior years or when they will be administered.

"Parents and students are going to wonder about the lack of detail on such a tight timeline," he said in an interview.

"The curriculum change is positive, but the implementation is problematic and that's entirely related to Premier Christy Clark's record of chronic underfunding of public education. Class sizes are getting bigger and there are fewer resources for the individualized learning that is called for in the plan."

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