A national assessment of grade eight students ranks Manitobans lower than students in every other province.

The 2016 Pan-Canadian Assessment Program found Manitoba students were at the bottom of the rankings in reading and math, and tied with Saskatchewan for last in science.

Education and training minister Ian Wishart says they are working on a solution.

"We're putting together and literacy/numeracy initiative, especially designed for some of the early years, that we hope will yield better results in terms of students learning better and doing better... in this test," says Wishart.

The same report found Manitoba students in French-language school systems weren't faring as well as students in English-language schools in reading and science. Wishart says that's a bit of a surprise.

"We have no real explanation for why that might be so, and it is certainly something we'll be looking into in greater detail," says Wishart.

The report shows Manitoba students did better in 2016 than in 2010, except for students in Manitoba's French-speaking schools when it comes to reading. The report says Manitoba francophone students had "statistically lower achievement in 2016 than in the baseline year," which differs from Canada overall, which saw "significant, positive growth" in reading for francophones.

According to the Council of Ministers of Education Canada, which released the report, approximately 27,000 grade eight students from close to 1,500 schools were tested. Reading was the primary domain assessed. No territories were involved, only the provinces.