The Throne Speech last week opened the second session of the 28th Legislature.

South East Cornerstone School Division's Director of Education has given her reaction to the speech.

"As provincial school divisions we have been working together to address the deficit and south-east cornerstone has also been working within our system of mathematics to adjust the achievement level," said Lynn Little, Director of Education, South East Cornerstone School Division.

"What we do know is in studying effective mathematics programs that we need to find a balance between mathematical skills, concepts, and applications with the instructional practices that emphasize explanation, justification and number sense. Once we can help students understand 'how' and 'why' then I'm very confident that those scores will continue to rise."

Little added that it is something that the school division has been working on for quite some time and that Mathematics hasn't changed but the way it is taught, has based on research done. 

There is a new focus on the development of a computer coding curriculum to help get students ready for careers in mathematics, science and engineering and technology.

"We were especially excited about the fact that 'stop and pause' has been lifted and we can begin to move forward in the province with ensuring that our curriculum is moving into the 21st century with skills and abilities. Some work around coding programs for students, we think that is also essential so we're looking forward to those pieces."

There had been a pause on curriculum development which has been lifted in order for renewal to continue in a number of subject areas.

The Throne Speech highlighted 21 new schools in the province that opened in September. 18 of which are P3, a public-private partnership model that saved $100 million in construction costs.

The Government of Saskatchewan is planning to invoke the 'notwithstanding' clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to make sure families can continue to choose which school to send their children to after a court decision ruled the government must cease funding for non-minority faith students who attend separate schools.

Another point from the Education section of the Throne Speech is to improve the teaching of French in schools by working with other provinces such as Quebec.

Little said that overall with education "a positive conversation" and with the rest of the speech that it will be interesting to see how things work out with the changes to the provincial leadership.