A new compulsory financial literacy test will bolster Ontario high school students’ ability to manage a budget, save for an asset, invest, and protect themselves from financial fraud.
The provincial government announced Thursday that Ontario high school students will need to pass a financial literacy assessment to graduate. This is part of a sweeping reform to modernize the Ontario Secondary School Diploma for the first time in 25 years.
“This will ensure students graduate with financial competence and a competitive edge to succeed in their life and career after high school,” said the Ontario government in a press release.
Ontario’s Education Minister Stephen Lecce made the announcement after he rang the opening bell at the Toronto Stock Exchange.
“Too many parents, employers, and students themselves tell me that students are graduating without sufficient financial literacy and basic life skills,” Lecce said.
“As we go back to basics in the classroom, we will introduce Ontario’s first financial literacy graduation requirement, along with the return of a modernized home economics education. By elevating life skills in the classroom, along with better career education and higher math standards for educators, we are setting up every student for life-long success.”
Lecce added that the goal was to ensure that students graduate with practical learning, allowing them to get hired at better jobs and earn bigger paycheques.
The new financial literacy requirement will be integrated into the Grade 10 math curriculum. It will cover practical skills such as budgeting, saving for a home, investing wisely, and protecting against financial fraud. The graduation requirement is set to build on cumulative financial literacy learning from Grades 1 to 9.
Students must score at least 70% on the assessment to meet the graduation requirement. Those who do not pass on their first attempt will have another opportunity within the same Grade 10 course before resorting to credit recovery programs and other in-school supports.
The changes also announced reinstating a math competency test for new teachers, starting in February 2025. This test, which had been challenged in court for being racist but ultimately upheld, is mandatory for graduates seeking certification to teach in Ontario classrooms.
Like the students with their new financial literacy test, teachers had to pass the test with 70%, which covered curriculum from elementary and secondary math classes, planning, and assessment practices.
Associate Director of Education Policy for the Fraser Institute Paige MacPherson said that research clearly indicates that quality teachers result in strong student performance.
“Few things matter as much as having quality teachers at the head of the classroom. Making sure that teachers are subject matter experts in what they’re teaching is a really good step forward for Ontario,” said MacPherson.
Other significant reforms include a revamp of guidance and career education, with up to $14 million in funding for career coaching for Grade 9 and 10 students.
“Starting in the next school year, new career coaches with direct experience in high-demand economic sectors will complement the work of guidance teacher-counsellors to support more than 315,000 students. In small group sessions of fewer than six, students will learn about various careers, including local in-demand jobs in the skilled trades,” said the Ontario government.
The Ontario government cited an RBC poll from 2022, where 83% of young Canadians said they needed more information and support on money management, and 68% said they felt overwhelmed and needed help.
The provincial government said that these changes are part of a suite of reforms meant to embrace the back-to-basics agenda.
MacPherson argued, however, that Ontario should focus on the core competencies if they believe in a back-to-basics approach.
She explained that the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment, the international gold standard for math assessments, had shown that students in Ontario have fallen behind. PISA is an international standardized test for 15-year-olds.
Between 2003 and 2022, Ontario’s PISA math scores declined from 530 to 495, a 35-point drop. PISA characterizes a 20-point drop as equivalent to one year of lost learning. Currently, Ontario’s 15-year-olds are almost two years behind where they were two decades ago.
MacPherson confirmed that this decline predated the COVID-19 school closures. Ontario’s 2012 PISA math score was 514.
“You can introduce these kinds of life skills into the curriculum, but you should not do that at the expense of forgetting the real back-to-basics education that needs to be in the curriculum,” she said.