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However, the PISA report, which this year focused primarily on science, again highlights the lack of progress in math scores in Canada, even if we still rank well overall. The 2012 report showed the performance of many countries, Canada among them, declining performance since 2006. While things haven’t gotten worse, and we still do well overall, math education experts say the report — based on the test scores of students who were 15 in 2015 — shows math remains a cause for concern.

“The concern is with math, while science scores seem to be good, the math scores are pretty stagnant. In fact, some provinces have even gotten worse since the last round of testing in 2012,” said Anna Stokke, a professor of mathematics at the University of Winnipeg.

A debate over so-called discovery math — an approach wherein students are encouraged to work out problems in various ways instead of relying on rote learning — erupts every few months as math-testing scores are published in different provinces. And, as the PISA report reveals, progress across the country remains uneven on all fronts — in particular, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador lag the rest of the country.

“This seems to be a persistent issue,” Stokke said. “The biggest drops from 2003 to 2012 were in Manitoba and Alberta,” with scores in all provinces except Quebec declining. “We’ve sort of seen the scores stay the same, we haven’t seen improvement.”

Even though Canada was praised repeatedly in the report, for better outcomes for newcomers or girls than many other countries and for a strong system overall, the math performance struck a chord. Two provinces, Quebec and B.C., performed above the national average, while one — Saskatchewan — fell far below the rest of Canada and did even worse than the PISA average.