How are students performing in literacy and math in the province?

Premier Susan Holt provided a look at the past year during her State of the Province address delivered in Fredericton last week.

The province had set goals for proficiency in literacy and math for both anglophone and francophone districts.

Holt expressed that the province’s school systems have experienced both successes and failures.

One of the province’s goals with education was to lower chronic absenteeism rates in both school systems. The premier reported that the goal was met.

“We were really pleased to see a decrease in chronic absenteeism in both of our school systems. We are not going to move the needle on literacy or numeracy if kids are not in school,” said Holt.

The chronic absentee rate currently sits at 29.3 percent, which not only outpaced the 2025 target of 30.9 percent, but already comes close to the projected 2026 target of 29 percent.

Math outcomes, however, failed to meet 2025 targets. English students missed their target of 54.4 by three per cent, scoring just 51.4 per cent. French students also missed their target of 69.6, falling almost four per cent short at 65.9 per cent.

The province’s schools delivered encouraging results in literacy for Anglophone and immersion schools.

“We thought that we would be at 53.8 per cent next year and we are at 55.3 per cent this year [in anglophone schools],” the Premier explained. “That is movement in the right direction.”

Holt partially credited her colleagues from the previous government for setting the foundation for literacy improvement by introducing a curriculum teaching the science of reading.

“What we did last year was put the right resources around that program. Academic support teachers, in the classroom beside the students, focused on making sure the curriculum was helping students realize their full potential.”

Although francophone schools fell short of the 2025 target of 71.5 by just two per cent, the Premier reminded the audience that French literary outcomes are still the highest.

Looking towards the future, Holt said the negative numbers received on the 2025 progress report card,  help her and her team know what the focus should be in the following year.

For more in-depth information about these numbers, please refer to the education section of the Government of New Brunswick’s government priorities page.