Math 10: Part 2

Last week we went over the choices available for the new BC Math courses.  The link to that post is here.  Now that you understand the basics to what is being offered and the purpose of each course we can go into the reasons why the BC Ministry of Education decided to make these changes. Although it may seem like this change happened suddenly, they have actually been in the works since 1993 and the Ministry involved teachers, parents, students and professionals.  This was also a huge collaboration between the Ministries of Education in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the Yukon.  Combined, they built the Western and Northern Canadian Protocol (WNCP) and created this new math curriculum. 

One goal, by collaborating with the other provinces, is that it allows many Canadian students to have the same math background when they graduate.  Therefore students are not limited to their province of study for any career or post-secondary education they may want to take.  This is a wonderful opportunity as students can now access programs that may not be available in their own provinces.

Another reason for changing to the new math curriculum is that the previous BC Math had streams based on ability.  There were three options in math depending not on what career they were going to take, but the individual students ability level.  If you were good at math, you took Principles, if you weren’t good at math, you took the Applications or Essentials course (again depending on your ability). 

Although, it may be confusing, and require an adjustment, these new math pathways will provide practical math skills and opportunities for students no matter what their choices after graduation may be.  See our post next week for information on changes within the course content!