When it comes to educational superpowers, minds often wander to Asian countries like Singapore, South Korea or the Nordic countries like Finland and Norway. This is because the students from these countries have outperformed all others academically for the longest time.
As time has passed we as the global community have come to observe a new trend, that is Canada receiving an educational superpower status after what it has successfully achieved with its school student population.
New tests show Canada’s teens better educated than the rest
International Pisa tests of the recent years have come to reflect a new trend: the teenagers of Canada are among the best educated in the world as per tests conducted by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Canadians teens are stiff competition to peers in countries that have a reputation for being the best at subjects like science, maths, and reading. This is also reflected in the highest average percentage of working adults having high education qualification – a whopping 55% while other well-to-do countries in this regard are only at an average of 35% as evaluated by OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
Migrant students improving Canada’s status
Individual provinces within Canada have different policies, but across the deck have to have equal opportunities ensured for all students. Regardless of what is the status of migration and origin of students, state sponsored education is the reason behind this equity.
The provinces of Quebec, Alberta, and British Columbia have the qualifications to leave behind big time leaders in science, namely Singapore and Japan, at the high school level.
The education director of OECD, Andreas Schleicher observes that this has to do with the equity offered by Canada to its opportunity seekers. The largest number of students in Canadian schools are from families of migrants where both parents are from outside Canada.
The migrants coming into Canada itself are relatively well educated and skilled. This results in a cultural focus from these families on the education of their children as they encourage them to grow further and partake in higher education to hone their skills furthermore than the parents did.
This family – state balance is the optimum learning environment for students who get encouragement from home and opportunity from school. As is evident, the result is a very well educated well to do population of students that is doing Canada proud.
The stress on fairness and equal access is so strong that Pisa tests prove Canada to be one of the few countries where migrant children successfully are at equal footing with nonmigrant children.
State shouldered efforts
The state in Canada has stood for values like equality of opportunity and had laid a strong stress on literacy. This is reflected in Canada’s teachers being some of the most well paid in the world – an observation that sends its competitors running as they just cannot catch up. The schools are well staffed and libraries are well funded.
It is safe to say that the low socioeconomic gap within Canada also helps with the cause of education. While France stands at a socio-economic gap ranging at about 20% and Singapore stands at 17%, Canada has a very low socio economic gap rate at just 9%.
The consistency that the state is able to maintain across the board is the reason that Canada has successfully outdone other countries in terms of education, and is now looking at the status of an educational superpower.