With a new school year underway, divisions across the province continue to aim towards having more students gain an education.

Last week, Director of Education for the Horizon School Division, Kevin Garinger attended a symposium in Moose Jaw with fellow colleagues to discuss ways to improve Saskatchewan's graduation rate.

Through many discussions of the Education Sector Strategic Plan, it was settled on that the province wants to have the graduation rate up to 85% by 2020.

Of course, while the number was set at 85%, the end goal is always to have no student fall short.

"In the Horizon School Division, our goal is 100%, and that is where we are headed. I know that's the eventual goal for the province, but we have set that benchmark for 2020."

Garinger says that Horizon has seen a boost in numbers over the past few years to around 80% of students graduating.

"We've got some work to do of course. We've seen growth over the last couple of years and we are going to continue that focus," he explained. "One of the things we believe very strongly in is that when we can support our children and ensure they have those supports, and we make sure our schools are safe and caring."

He added that constant communication between the Board of Education, division, principals and teachers will ultimately help everyone achieve that goal.

Among the methods HSD is using to help their schools out is collaboration.

Throughout the school year, four teacher collaborative learning days are held, where all the teachers in the division get together in Humboldt to discuss and share ideas.

"Instructional practices, those kinds of things to be able to support each other. Of course that goes right back to the school," said Garinger of the days. "We have all these pieces in place around collaborative practice that is really important."

"When we improve one school, we improve the system. When we improve 20 schools, we improve the system."

On Tuesday, principals were invited to take part in a professional development opportunity at Jubilee Hall.

In his weekly message posted on the HSD website, Garinger quotes Isaac Asimov, a famed author and biochemist as saying, "a knotty puzzle may hold a scientist up for a century, when it may be that a colleague has the solution already and is not even aware of the puzzle that it might solve."

You can hear more from Garinger below.