The latest report from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) shows that the reading skills of our young Acadians rank last in the country.
An even more damning aspect of the report—one that has received no media attention—is the dismal performance of boys. Their scores are exceptionally low compared to the Canadian average for boys, which, it should be noted, is more than 22 points behind that of girls.
In 2025, the average score for all Canadian students hovered around 490 points. The score of an Acadian boy from New Brunswick fell well below 413 points.
On the PISA scale, a score of 500 points represents “a basic level of proficiency that allows for effective participation in social life.” A score of 400 points, on the other hand, is equivalent to a level of “functional illiteracy.”
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which administers the PISA tests, estimates that approximately 20 points on the PISA scale are equivalent to nearly one year of schooling. So, to put it simply, in reading comprehension, more than half of 15-year-old Acadian boys are at least three years behind their peers from the rest of the country.
The gap is enormous, and the delay is unacceptable. If nothing is done, thousands of Acadians will finish grade 12 without being able to fully grasp the nuances of the text you yourselves have before your eyes.
What should we do?
Following the news, some people wasted no time in badmouthing the teachers. That’s a mistake. What’s the point of blaming the coach when the players don’t even have skates, sticks, or ice time to practice between games? What seems obvious for playing hockey, playing a musical instrument, or swimming should be just as obvious for learning to read.
Too few families have books at home; our brave little public and school libraries are poorly stocked, underfunded, and have ridiculously short opening hours. Fathers rarely read in French. Bookstores and the people who run them are struggling to survive. There are no real French-language immersion programs for newcomers. Book policy remains abysmal, and I dare not even mention funding for culture.
How can we make this happen?
Our elected officials, across all political parties, must do their part to demand funding from Ottawa to implement the positive measures needed to ensure the genuine equality promised to us in the 1982 Charter and the federal Official Languages Act of 2023.
If the two levels of government do not act promptly and in a manner commensurate with the stakes, we will have to fight this out in court once again. We will invoke Section 23 of the Charter, which “guarantees the right to education in the language of the minority.” We will cite the decision in Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique v. British Columbia (2020 SCC 13), in which the Supreme Court held that we are entitled to a quality educational experience that is truly equivalent to that of the Canadian majority. It should be noted that the Court has ruled that a government’s budgetary constraints (in a province that is not officially bilingual) cannot be used as a key argument for disregarding its constitutional responsibilities.
Literacy is fundamental to our cultural development: it is a matter of national importance. Let’s not settle for just a few more lifelines. We need measures that go far beyond the walls of the school and the younger generations. We need to overhaul the entire ship, inside and out.
Simon Ouellette is an Acadian from New Brunswick. The article was first published in French in l’Acadie Nouvelle on September 16, 2026.
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