Students to lose credits for skipping too many classes
Posted Nov 2, 2010 12:50:40 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Nova Scotia’s Education Minister says she was reluctant to introduce measures that would bring academic consequences for student behaviour, but she ended up compromising on a report’s recommendation to withhold course credits for students who miss more than twenty per cent of class hours.
“I must admit, this is the recommendation I struggled with the most,” said Marilyn More. “But I see it as a consequence of last resort, after staged interventions are exhausted.”
It won’t be official provincial policy at first. School Boards will be the ones to decide on implementing the measure starting in the fall of 2011.
Putting credits in jeopardy from absences was among the 10 recommendations accepted out of the 13 in a report prepared by a committee headed by former deputy eduction minister Howard Windsor.
The headline item from that report was not accepted: forcing students to stay in school until they turn 18 or graduate Grade 12. Right now, the dropout age in Nova Scotia is 16.
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Minister’s Response to Promoting Student Engagement: Report of the Minister’s Working
Committee on Absenteeism and Classroom Climate:
http://www.ednet.ns.ca/pdfdocs/reports/Climate%20Committee%20Report%20Response.pdf
