'Big alarm bell': Most Grade 10 students in N.W.T. are repeating the grade, report says

Devon Tredinnick · CBC News

· Posted: Aug 20, 2026 7:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: August 20

In the 2024-25 school year, more than half of all Grade 10 students in the Northwest Territories were enrolled in that grade for at least the second time. 

The head of the territory's teachers' union says it's another indication that the education system is not meeting students' needs.

The re-enrolment rate in Grade 10 isn’t a new issue in the N.W.T., and it's only one notable finding in the territory’s latest performance report on students between junior kindergarten and Grade 12. The report was released last month.

Unlike in earlier grades, students in Grade 10 need specific course credits to graduate high school. According to the report, by the time many students get there, they aren't up to the task.

Rita Mueller, president of the N.W.T Teachers' Association, calls this longstanding issue a “bottleneck.” She says Grade 10 challenges students with its tougher, more condensed courses and a semestered schedule.

Mueller says students often have to retake core courses like language arts, science and math. 

“It's due to that kind of change — but it's also due to the fact that attendance is really important,” Mueller said.

Students in the Northwest Territories miss school more than one day every week on average, according to the territorial government’s report.

“Every day that you're missing is a lot of content. And that becomes very difficult for students that don't have regular attendance,” Mueller said.

Mueller also says there’s a lack of supporting resources — such as speech pathology and counselling services — for students who have complex needs.

“Our school system right now is just not meeting the needs of many students.”

'Social passing' or peer group placement

When the auditor general issued a report on the N.W.T.'s education system in 2020, it noted almost 40 per cent of students in Grade 10 were repeating the grade.

Now, the territory's recent report says 56 per cent of Grade 10 students in the 2024-2025 school year were repeating the grade. 

The auditor general in 2020 noted that “social passing” — keeping students with kids of their same age, rather than holding them back on the basis of their academic performance — was no longer an option once students reach Grade 10, and this may have been contributing to the high repeat rates.

Social passing has long been a contentious issue in the territory, and the government says it does not engage in the practice.

In an email to CBC News, education department spokesperson Thierry Lavoie says social passing "neither challenges nor supports students, advancing them regardless of whether they meet grade-level expectations, without appropriate programming and without consideration of retention."

Lavoie says the territory instead endorses “peer group placement.”

Essentially, a teacher and a support team can make a recommendation, and parents or guardians can decide whether a student moves along with their age group, or repeats the same grade. Students who move to the next grade, despite their performance, get a modified support plan, according to the department.

Compared to social passing, "it is a decision, not a default," Lavoie wrote.

Mueller says group placements matter because it can help make students feel safe and with their peers as they go through the school system.

But she also says for some students, it can be better to repeat a grade. She says some students have gone through group placements and still have not developed the skills necessary to handle the challenges that come with Grade 10.

• N.W.T. advocates worry school absence rates will worsen as staff shortages, low funding persist

“That’s definitely one of the reasons,” said Mueller. “But the reason they haven't been able to meet certain thresholds, perhaps in certain subject areas, is because the supports are not in our school system consistently throughout the Northwest Territories.”

'Almost a cliff that people face in Grade 10'

Education Minister Caitlin Cleveland was not available for an interview with CBC News.

A statement from education department spokesperson Agata Gutkowska says the government recognizes the high frequency of students repeating Grade 10 is a problem, and that it is "committed to improving student success as they transition into high school."

Yellowknife North MLA Shauna Morgan calls the Grade 10 repeat rate “one of the big alarm bells” from the territorial government’s latest report. 

She says students will sometimes have to re-enrol for years. Some never pass and eventually drop out.

“It does seem that it's very sudden — almost a cliff that people face in Grade 10,” she said.

Morgan said schools need to balance having proper expectations for students, while also not being so demanding it damages their self-confidence.

"I don't have any magic-bullet solutions, but we need to somehow instill this balance, perhaps all the way along, not just suddenly in Grade 10," she said.