
How Canada became an education superpower - iamjdg
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40708421
======
schwarrrtz
> Migrants coming to Canada, many from countries such as China, India and
> Pakistan, are often relatively well-educated and ambitious to see their
> children get into professional careers.

> Prof Jerrim says these families have an immigrant "hunger" to succeed, and
> their high expectations are likely to boost school results for their
> children.

Speaking from personal experience as a native Canadian, this can also motivate
non-immigrant children to work harder. When half of your peers have an
immigrant's work ethic it can be a real positive influence.

Disclaimer: this is an anecdote, my personal experience may not generalize,
etc.

~~~
diegoperini
Your lack of prejudice is really admirable.

~~~
dublinclontarf
What else was he supposed to do?

"These immigrants, coming over here, getting better grades than the rest of
us"?

That just becomes an admission of stupidity.

~~~
diegoperini
"These immigrants come and use the facilities we deserve to use".

Common is sense is not common.

Edit: Just to be clear, my first comment was really a compliment. No sarcasm
intended.

~~~
balabaster
> "These immigrants come and use the facilities we deserve to use".

Speaking from the perspective of an immigrant with tons of immigrant friends
and whose friends around the world tend to be travelers by nature, I have
noticed a lot of commonality in migrants and travelers that locals would do
well to mirror if they want to succeed:

More often than not, if the immigrants didn't use the facilities, they would
go unused and close and people would lose jobs, hurting the economy. Nobody
would benefit from this. Indeed, frequently immigrants don't even use the
facilities that you as locals are afforded. We're not allowed to claim
welfare, we work hard, we pay taxes, we create jobs, we make friends, we
integrate, we are neighbours, we laugh, we joke, we add richness to your lives
just as you do with ours.

There is a pervasive mentality that we come over and hog your resources and
take your jobs. Immigrants don't come and take anything, they come and do
whatever it takes to succeed. They do the shit jobs that nobody else wants
while they endlessly scour the economy for opportunities to succeed. If locals
had that same hunger, they wouldn't be blaming their lot in life on external
forces and they too would be successful.

Immigrants by and large are immigrants because they took charge of their
situation and moved to where they can get a better life. Residents who
relocate for work have the same take charge attitude, going where they can
make a difference and leveraging opportunity.

People that complain about "people coming and doing or using what we deserve
to use" by and large want opportunities handed to them, and when they're not
blame the world around them for that.

People with a strong external locus of control tend to blame others for their
problems in life. People with a strong internal locus of control tend to just
get on with leveraging the opportunities they find. They are in charge of
their own destiny instead of allowing their destiny to be controlled by
others.

If I were to make a broad sweeping statement, which we all know are flawed for
many reasons, but I will make it anyway:

Immigrants tend to have a strong internal locus of control.

People complaining about immigrants tend to have a strong external locus of
control.

If you change your locus of control and be in charge of your own destiny,
you'll care far less about immigrants. Indeed, you will become much more like
us, you will identify with us and you too will succeed.

------
hackermailman
>The universities are reaping the benefits of the Trump effect, with record
levels of applications from overseas students seeing Canada as a North
American alternative to the United States.

It's been record levels since the beginning of Obama's term in 2008 and
climbing every year. Reason is immigration laws since then are incredibly lax
for foreign students. If you want Canadian citizenship show up here for ESL
private school, a hair academy, a university, any accredited course and you
can obtain a temporary work permit while attending classes (and for a period
afterwards). This allows a local company to offer to sponsor you for full time
employment, which eventually leads to citizenship. Vancouver is filled with
Brazilian accountants who got in this way, they came here to take ESL, and
went to go work for some accounting firm like KPMG with their degrees they
have from Brazil.

Edit: they changed the laws in 2014 to make this a little more difficult, but
temporary work permits are still available for any student esp somebody going
to university/college. These always lead to full-time offer and citizenship.

~~~
pm90
The only real problem I see is that comp. levels in Canada are not as high as
the US while COL in most of the major cities is similar to NYC. As a (legal)
immigrant to the US, while Canada definitely sounds very attractive, I don't
want to take a major hit to my quality of life just to escape Trumpland...

~~~
samBergeron
> I don't want to take a major hit to my quality of life just to escape
> Trumpland

Major hit to your quality of life? I'm sorry, you may potentially have a
little less money in your pocket, but you're trading direct cash for better
social services (read healthcare and education).

You make it sound like we're living in a 3rd world country.

~~~
richardknop
> Major hit to your quality of life? I'm sorry, you may potentially have a
> little less money in your pocket, but you're trading direct cash for better
> social services (read healthcare and education).

What if "little less money in your pocket" means 50% (or more) pay cut? For
software engineers you are easily looking at a substantial reduction in
salary.

I think most people are willing to take a pay cut in exchange for better
social services and free healthcare & education. But there is a breaking point
where the comp. is too low for the extra services to make up the difference.

~~~
kogepathic
_> I think most people are willing to take a pay cut in exchange for better
social services and free healthcare & education._

Postsecondary education is not free* in Canada. It's certainly cheaper than in
the US, but nowhere near free.

I paid around $10k/year for my B.Eng program (as a domestic student in the
late 00's).

Also healthcare in Canada, while covering regular doctors visits and any
emergency hospitalisation, is not entirely free. You still have to pay for
dental/optical (unless your employer offers additional insurance) and you
still pay for prescriptions (which can add up).

* maybe this is just your phrasing and you meant "better education and free healthcare"

~~~
richardknop
Yes, I meant better/cheaper education and free healthcare. I am not actually
too familiar with education in Canada.

Being from Eastern Europe my education has been completely free so I assumed
it's the same in Canada as it is seen as a more socialist/liberal version of
US (at least that's the impression I get about Canada from here).

The argument expressed in my comment still makes sense though, actually it's
even stronger since education is not free in Canada.

~~~
johan_larson
Twelve years of grade school and high school are free in Canada. University
isn't free, but is significantly subsidized, and there are various grant
programs for people who can't afford even the subsidized rates. The Ontario
student aid program is called OSAP.

You want an education in computer science at the University of Waterloo? If
you're a Canadian or permanent resident, that's $7,278.48 per term for a total
of roughly $58K plus living costs.

[https://uwaterloo.ca/finance/student-financial-
services/tuit...](https://uwaterloo.ca/finance/student-financial-
services/tuition-fee-schedules/fee-schedule-canadian-and-permanent-resident-
undergraduates-5)

~~~
richardknop
$58K is crazy. How come in my home country where we have very low taxation
(~20%) all of this can be paid for by taxes for everybody but in a rich
liberal country like Canada you have to pay 58 grand for a degree?

And Canada doesn't even have an excuse of being the world policeman. At least
US can say we have to pay tons of money for military and hundreds of our army
bases around the world so there is no left over money for public education.
But what's the reason for Canada?

I mean if you have rich parents who will pay it for you then you don't care
but if you are normal and have to pay it yourself that means you probably need
to take a loan, going into debt right at the beginning of your adult life.

That's bit unfair, you should have a clean starting slate and equal
opportunity with others, not be forced to go into debt immediately.

~~~
pm90
Because in your home country, wages are lower, which makes everything cheaper
than in Canada (I'm taking a guess here, since you mention some Eastern
European country).

Also, I'm very much pro-environment and everything, but the reality is that
regulations have a real cost. e.g. fire safety, parking space etc. Not to
mention taxes for local, state and federal level... it adds up to make shit
expensive.

~~~
richardknop
Sure everything is cheaper but tax revenue is also proportionally cheaper.

Average salary is 12k euro per year. So if you are collecting 20% of that as
income tax, that's a small amount of revenue to work with and it is still
enough to cover free healthcare and education.

My point being that everything is cheaper but in proportion to that salaries
and tax revenues from those salaries are also much smaller compared to a first
world country like Canada.

------
ThomPete
One of the things I always ask in these discussions is "so what did that do
for them" Finland is also an education super-power but what does it really do
for the country?

Unless all countries are underdeveloped, education is a hygiene factor and
doesn't as such provide any benefits.

In Europe, Switzerland is one of the countries with the fewest academics.
Instead they focused on technical educations (starting from something akin to
trade school up to university level knowledge). The results while most
European countries first now a waking up the the realization that academic
education isn't the only education of value and is scrambling to make their
tradeschools/technical schools working better, Switzerland is one of the few
countries doing very specialized production that can't be outsourced (for now)

In other words education is important but the focusing on education especially
higher but also on the elementary level as some sort of indication of how well
a country is fairing is not really a useful metric.

~~~
dm319
I would say a technical education is an education, but I agree, pure academia
isn't for everyone - though the article doesn't distinguish this. In fact,
Switzerland does very well by the OECD metric [1].

Why is education important? Can I suggest we compare two countries singled out
in the article as 'could do better's - the USA and UK, and their recent
democratic decisions. Compare that to Canada's cabinet, who, for example, has
appointed someone with a PhD as minister for science [2], a doctor as minister
for health [3] etc etc. I don't think I need to give examples of Scandinavian
countries which regularly top the rankings for both wealth and pay equality.

Maybe a population where the country has valued education are less likely to
say they "have had enough of experts" [4], more likely to respect the
knowledge of a specialist, and more likely to have skills which are capable of
transferring to the changing work market.

The problem is that investing in education has its pay-offs 20-30 years down
the line, which is why, even if we believe in education, governments are
reluctant to actually spend the money on it.

[1]
[http://www.oecd.org/edu/bycountry/switzerland/](http://www.oecd.org/edu/bycountry/switzerland/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsty_Duncan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsty_Duncan)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Philpott](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Philpott)

[4]
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Gove](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Gove)

~~~
hoorayimhelping
> _the USA and UK, and their recent democratic decisions._

As long as people (especially educated liberal leaning people) keep framing
recent elections as "dumb people elected Trump cause they're dumb," we're
going to keep getting Trumps in the elected office. One of the loudest things
communicated in the last election in America is that people who don't vote
like you are tired of the patronizing, condescending and presumptuous tone.
Rather than characterizing the outcome of the last election as "uneducated
people elected an asshole", it might do well to understand the concerns of the
people who elected him, rather than dismissing them offhand.

~~~
dm319
I hear this argument a lot. Just because something is inflammatory, doesn't
mean it isn't true [1]. It also doesn't mean discussing it will cause it to
happen again. It also doesn't mean that we can't also look into the causes and
concerns of said people and the vote.

Improving education allows people to develop skills for a changing job market,
as well as recognise that some promises [2] were suspect from the start. My
opinion is that these were two contributing factors to vote result.

[1] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
politics-38762034](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38762034)

[2]
[https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.indy100.com/article/7-brexi...](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.indy100.com/article/7-brexit-
promises-that-have-already-been-abandoned--b1Ne7rGnZDZ%3famp)

~~~
ThomPete
Education has far less to do with being educated than the word might allude
to.

Having a university degree is no guarantee against a stupid electorate.

~~~
pm90
The thing though is that a university degree does confer some amount of
critical thinking on _most_ of its graduates. I'm rather skeptical that
_every_ college graduate is guaranteed to be a smart, critical thinking,
nuances person. But I do feel comfortable in saying that most are. And even
those that aren't, have been exposed to people who are, have created social
networks etc.

So I don't think being a college educated Republican/Conservative is a
contradiction. The difference is the college educated person is more likely to
believe in facts and reasoned arguments than appeals to passion, or native
tribalism. They are more likely to have more faith in institutions, including
democracy.

I think its hard for someone who went to college to relate to a person who
hasn't been in terms of what kind of effect college has on their lives.

~~~
ThomPete
Critical thinking is a talent not something you learn at the university.
People of all shapes and sizes form alle parts of society has it. It starts
way earlier than university too.

There is a much magical thinking going on at university level as many other
places in society. Further more critical thinking is often mistaken for
constructive thinking which is another rather big issue with universities.
Universities are mostly about analysis not about creating which leaves a
gaping hole in the real world.

I have worked with my share of academics and non-academics. There is no
noticeable difference between them generally speaking. Only when it comes to
subject matters do we differ in our naivety and hasty conclusions but the
ability to think critical is IMO something very different.

~~~
pm90
> I have worked with my share of academics and non-academics.

Unless you have a different definition of "academics", this doesn't seem to me
like you're arguing for anything. By "non-academics", are you talking about
"not-gone-to-college"?

And I'm not going to continue this discussion either way, since we seem to be
operating on anecdotes. Perhaps your experience has been different than mine.
I would add though that I'm not asserting that a University automatically
imbibes critical thinking, just that it exposes students to it, whether it be
their professors or peers. A college education expands your worldview, but
certainly it can be achieved in other ways (travel, reading etc.)

~~~
ThomPete
Yes I am talking about not-gone-to-college.

There is anecdotal evidence and then there are anecdotes. I am simply
questioning the idea that university are somehow turning people into critical
thinkers if they weren't before.

Critical thinking is a skill. You have to practice it like you practice music.
And just like music simply being exposed to piano playing doesn't make you a
piano player.

~~~
pm90
> Critical thinking is a skill. You have to practice it like you practice
> music. And just like music simply being exposed to piano playing doesn't
> make you a piano player.

Actually, this is a good point. Yes, I agree 100% it doesn't automatically
make you a piano player. But it _might_ make you _appreciate_ piano music and
pianists more. It might make you interested in how piano music evolved over
time etc.

~~~
ThomPete
Sure but the world doesn't get better because everyone know a bit of history.
Not until it's internalized does it truly add value (and even there it's a
slippery slope)

------
devrandomguy
> The OECD, trying to understand Canada's success in education, described the
> role of the federal government as "limited and sometimes non-existent".

Actually, the federal government did make one critical mandate[1]. It
effectively ensures that we are all exposed to two languages in school, and
creates a much more rigorous French immersion stream in the school system.

That immersion into another culture and language, at a very early age, has
paid huge dividends in my ability to travel, to assemble and work in
multinational teams, and to form constructive, even loving, relationships with
people who are at first very alien to me. I believe that it is also to be
credited for enabling several of us, all from the French immersion stream, to
begin playing with algebra somewhere around Grade 3, by deeply reinforcing our
awareness of multiple representations for single concepts or entities. This
then segued into my first programming language, QBasic, a year later.

If you have kids, then based on my own experience and observation of my
cohorts, I strongly recommend that you find a way to ensure that they learn a
second language, while they are still learning their first. Throw them in the
deep end, you can always pull them out.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_23_of_the_Canadian_Cha...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_23_of_the_Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms)

~~~
vkou
French immersion is also criticized for segregating the academically-minded
families who put their students through it from the general population.

The best parts of it can, and should be replicated across the general student
population, without creating a taxpayer-funded charter school system.

~~~
macspoofing
>French immersion is also criticized for segregating the academically-minded
families who put their students through it from the general population.

"Academically-minded families"? What do you mean? Families that care about
education vs families that don't?

~~~
uiri
I think that is exactly what he means. The parents who put their children in
French immersion programs tend to fall into one of two groups. The first group
are francophones living in an Anglophone part of the country. The second group
are parents who prize academic success for their children.

~~~
macspoofing
>The second group are parents who prize academic success for their children.

So apparently OP is finding fault with the fact that some parents care enough
about their kids' education (specifically knowledge of French) to put them in
a french immersion school. Given that both are public schools open to all,
what are is OP actually complaining about?

~~~
syrrim
>Given that both are public schools open to all

In the first few years of your education, yes they are open to all. However,
once a child has gone through several years of french immersion, they have the
ability to choose between continuing in french, or dropping into english. A
child who has done only english has a similar option, but it will require
considerable extra work on their part to switch to french. So a public french
immersion high school cannot be considered open to all.

>care enough about their kids' education (specifically knowledge of French)

Not specifically. Certain public schools can be more well funded, or
specialize in different areas than others. A school which has a french
immersion program might also have a heavier focus on academics than other
schools. Once it gains a better reputation, it might become attractive even to
those who aren't interested in having a better education. A french immersion
program is a way of limiting such peoples access to these schools.

~~~
macspoofing
> A child who has done only english has a similar option, but it will require
> considerable extra work on their part to switch to french. So a public
> french immersion high school cannot be considered open to all

Yeah ... No.

Are you just looking for things to complain? If there's some school with a
good reputation is it automatically 'limiting access' to those kids who don't
live in that neighborhood? Jeez.

------
pmilot
This is good news, but it doesn't tell the whole story. What's important to
remember is that each Canadian province has its own education system, so
mileage may greatly vary depending on where you live in Canada.

In Québec, where I live, the drop-out rate is abysmal compared to other
provinces, especially in french-speaking school boards [1] (which are much
more numerous in Québec):

[1] [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/dismal-dropout-
rates-...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/dismal-dropout-rates-among-
french-speaking-students-worry-minister-1.2771757)

~~~
rubatuga
Also, Manitoba is ranked almost last within Canada for science, reading, and
math

------
brutalistcode
> Within three years of arriving, the Pisa tests show the children of new
> migrants have scores as high as the rest of their schoolmates.

> It makes Canada one of the few countries where migrant children achieve at a
> level similar to their non-migrant counterparts.

The high performance of migrant children probably comes from their motivated
and educated parents due to Canada's immigration policy:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/28/opinion/canada-
immigratio...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/28/opinion/canada-immigration-
policy-trump.html)

------
lwansbrough
> But the children of newly-arrived, migrant families seem to integrate
> rapidly enough to perform at the same high level as their classmates.

Quite the opposite, I think. I don't have the data to back it up, but it
always seemed like the migrant kids excelled far more often in STEM courses
(to the point where our classes were considered trivial or elementary) than
their Canadian-born peers.

~~~
sattoshi
This is my experience throughout gradeschool as well.

The explanation is quite evident: the immigration policies put in place
promote such that only the best come in.

------
forkLding
For those looking for the actual results, its the 2015 PISA results conducted
by sampling 15 year olds. Heres a more relevant link:

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canada-s-15-year-old-
stude...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canada-s-15-year-old-students-
among-best-global-performers-in-science-math-1.3883341)

For more info from OECD on results: [http://www.oecd.org/education/Singapore-
tops-latest-OECD-PIS...](http://www.oecd.org/education/Singapore-tops-latest-
OECD-PISA-global-education-survey.htm)

------
erikb
It seems to me like every second country is an education superpower now and
feels quite special about it. What do we get if we combine this information
with that most students don't feel they've learned in school the skills they
needed after school, and also combine it with many scientists believing that
science is not about generating knowledge anymore but about producing an
endless, unchecked stream of papers?

If considered a market, I'd say these three things combined make it a likely
bubble and an oportunity to start looking for what will come after.

~~~
devoply
Modern society does not have any metaphysical meaning associated with it and
everything is heavily specialized and distributed using self-interest. This at
the end seems to be a recipe for eventual failure. Why? One reason is that
self-interests start aligning with each other forming monopolies and
conglomerates which is essentially corruption manifest. The modern
civilization needs an overarching metaphysics which then ties to a sense of
morality of each individual serving the entire society rather than just
themselves. That's the only hope we have for a future. Otherwise the aligned
self-interest will destroy civilization.

If you carry this out you see its implications everywhere in the system. The
food production does not serve any goals of society, instead food production
is focused on optimizing for costs and yield. What this leads to is intensive
farming which then leads to depletion and fragility which leads to disease. In
terms of actually producing the food to eat, i.e, processed food, again self-
interest produces highly addictive foods that increase profit, the cost of
that is paid by the other side of the bargain.

When that self-interest of corporations aligns with academia or even the self-
interest of academia itself, it then starts focusing on profit and educating
students for the needs of corporations. Which then feeds into this sort of
cycle of people who serve corporations, and corporations who serve themselves.
And society pays the price.

------
alex98
I think it's important to point out that this rising tide does not lift all
boats. The autonomy of individual provinces results in a divide between the
provinces. While provinces like Ontario and BC rank in the top 5 globally,
Prince Edward Island ranks 26th in the world. I'm from PEI, and when I arrived
at university I noticed my peers from bigger provinces were simply taught more
material, especially in math and science. Ideally there would be some more
standardization nationally to reduce this delta.

------
joss82
> Another distinguishing feature is that Canada's teachers are well paid by
> international standards - and entry into teaching is highly selective.

Funny how this makes education level better, huh?

Are you listening, France?

~~~
seszett
Huh, why are you singling out France out of the blue?

I'd say that the fact that France is better than OECD average with relatively
low teacher pay (though higher than the average salary in the country) seems
to indicate that salary isn't everything, on the contrary.

The differences regarding immigration to Canada and France might be a far more
important factor though.

~~~
pertymcpert
Maybe he or she is French and has experience of these issues? Just a complete
guess though.

------
g9yuayon
I took an AP math in Canada and later graduated from CS department of U of
Toronto. The schools in Toronto did at least one thing right: they didn't dumb
down their courses.

I did well in my AP calculus, 98/100 or something like that, but I still felt
the pressure in all the tests and exams, as there were just so many questions
crammed in a single test. I had to keep writing, non stop, and barely had time
to double check any of my answers. Contrast to my school experience before I
went to Canada, I could usually use way less than half of the exam time to
finish and double check every problem.

The same pattern continued in U of T. The class average of courses like
algorithms often went below 40/100\. I usually had to keep writing until the
last minute to finish every single question in an exam. Assignments were
usually time consuming and required lots of thinking. I still remember the
tremendous satisfaction when I finally proved a theorem about universal
hashing (an exercise from CLRS, IIRC). And past success on assignments and
tests didn't guarantee good grades in the final exam. I was actually
dumbfounded when I did poorly in my AI course, even though I did extremely
well except for my final exam.

Looking back though, I am very grateful for the struggles my professors put me
through. They made me. What I learned then carried me a long way, even today.
Without the high standards imposed by the schools, an ordinary student like me
would not be able to do as well. As I kept telling friends, schools MUST keep
their students in discomfort zones to help them learn and improve - the very
thing that US schools, in particular SF bay area public schools, have been
failing miserably.

------
matthewcanty
I'm reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Antifragile at the moment. His explanation
of how Switzerland operates as municipalities, with little central government
intervention - except collecting taxes - is strikingly similar.

In this context: Let smaller education decision making groups decide what is
important for their local area. Any failure is of benefit to all, while the
negative impacts of the actual failure are localised.

------
a_imho
PISA results are a good indicator how well a particular educating system
prepares students for PISA tests.

Looking at the charts in [1], Canadian performance seems to be slightly
declining (esp. Maths).

[1][http://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/CAN?lg=en](http://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/CAN?lg=en)

------
slm_HN
My father taught college in both Canada and the United States around 40 years
ago. When I asked about the differences between the two countries he said they
were basically the same, except that Canadian students worked harder and
complained less.

------
Philosopher
This will be self-congratulatory, but teachers deserve a huge amount of the
thanks for these results. We deal with increasing student complexity,
bureaucratic requirements and degraded infrastructure to not only get the job
done well, but to get it done to some of the highest standards in the world.

Note too that we haven't just done well on the most recent PISA tests, we've
been a consistent top level finisher across the three subject tests since PISA
started over a decade ago.

------
jimpick
Something else to add ... there was an influx of draft dodgers from the
Vietnam War, and a lot of those became teachers. Canada was investing in their
education system at that time whereas the U.S. was trying to choke off campus
protest movements. Fast forward half a century, and that investment has paid
dividends.

------
sebnap
It's obviously because of Jordan B. Peterson.

------
zhemao
Oh look, yet another article about a country that's doing education better
than us here in the US. And the funny thing is that they all seem to do things
in different ways.

You know what I think the problem is? Americans on the whole just don't care
about public education. Either in terms of quality or equity.

~~~
alacombe
Coming from Europe, I can tell you that secondary Canadian education is
laughable at best.

~~~
avip
I had the exact same impression, yet somehow they nail it in OECD comparative
tests.

~~~
johan_larson
Having gone through the Canadian education system, I would guess that Canada's
high score comes from doing a good job on the lower percentiles, 1-50 or so.
The system is slow and repetitive in the lower grades; its focus is getting
_everyone_ up to basic standards rather than challenging the best students.
But if you're at all clever and diligent, it's boring.

Tracking happens late, at entry to high school (grade 9), where they split you
up into academic, regular, and vocational tracks. From there on things move at
a more respectable pace, at least in the academic track. But at that point the
top-track students are already years behind their peers in other systems that
moved faster and tracked sooner. I would guess the top students coming out of
high school are about two years behind students in academic tracks in other
countries, like the UK or Germany.

------
mjehanzeb
When it comes to fairness and equality. No doubt, Canada is doing wonderful
job. System treats everyone the same. Any country interested to improve should
certainly investigate Canadian system.

~~~
kul
Equality of opportunity is what is important, not equality of outcome, which
is what some people try to conflate it with.

~~~
coliveira
This is the kind of ideology that leads to trouble. If there is equality of
opportunity, there will be equality of outcomes, at least on average. When you
see inequality rising it is a serious clue that opportunities are not the same
for everyone.

~~~
rumcajz
What about focusing on social mobility instead of equality?

~~~
quadrangle
How about _equity_ instead of equality?

Anyway, "social mobility" generally just means there's no caste system or
effective caste system. If the inequity in the system means that a small
percent of people hold most of the wealth and power, what difference does it
make if anyone has a chance to join that elite?

In a zero-sum game, social mobility is better to exist than not but it isn't
going to actually change anything fundamental.

------
rvern
Non-AMP version:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40708421](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40708421).

~~~
dang
Thanks, we changed it.

------
awkwarddaturtle
Articles like this put me off because it is blatant propaganda.

Canada isn't an education superpower. The silly international ranking of kids'
test taking abilities is meaningless.

Real education superpowers are those with top universities which in turn
produce economic gains/growth/etc.

If canada was a true economic superpower, we'd see them producing Google,
Facebook, Microsoft, etc.

Frankly, there is only 1 education superpower - the US. Go check a list of top
100 universities. It's almost entirely US colleges. Britain is the next far
distant competitor. The only other nation who may challenge the US to become
an education superpower in the future is china as they are building tons of
universities. This is something we did in the US in the 1800s. Build a
incredible number of universities as our economy grew. The only question is
whether china will be able to match our quality because they are going to
surpass our quantity by a large margin.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35776555](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35776555)

Also, if the BBC journalist did any bit of research, they would know that
Canada's "150th anniversary" is fake propaganda itself. Canada isn't 150 years
old. They gained their independence in 1983.

~~~
pmilot
> Real education superpowers are those with top UNIVERSITIES which in turn
> produce economic gains/growth/etc.

Why is your metric considered more apt than the article's? Good student
performance consistently correlates with higher-paying jobs and higher quality
of life. At the nation level, this correlates to higher Human-Development
Index, which is generally considered a pretty good thing to have...

> If canada was a true economic superpower, we'd see them producing Google,
> Facebook, Microsoft, etc.

That is utter nonsense. What does this have to do with education at all? Bill
Gates, Paul Allen, Mark Zuckerberg, Sean Parker, and Steve Jobs were all
college dropouts. They simply had the right idea at the right time. Their
economic success has very little to do with the U.S. education system.

~~~
awkwarddaturtle
> Good student performance consistently correlates with higher-paying jobs and
> higher quality of life.

Because that's the more sensible definition for superpower?

> Good student performance consistently correlates with higher-paying jobs and
> higher quality of life. At the nation level, this correlates to higher
> Human-Development Index, which is generally considered a pretty good thing
> to have...

Great. I agree. Did I disagree anywhere? My issue is with the usage of the
word superpower. And americans on average earn more than canadians.

> Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Mark Zuckerberg, Sean Parker, and Steve Jobs were
> all college dropouts.

And? They did go to college.

> They simply had the right idea at the right time.

Right.

> Their economic success has very little to do with the U.S. education system.

Ah I see. When the US education creates successes, it has nothing to do with
the US education system. When canada's education system produces successes,
canada is a superpower.

As I said, my only issue is with the BBC blatant propagandistic article. Their
use of "superpower" and their perpetuating the lie of Canada's 150th year.

I'm for education. But canada is no more an education superpower than north
korea is a nuclear superpower.

And I love your logic. Bill Gates, Zuckerburg, etc don't count. But kids
taking silly tests count. Okay.

------
calvinbhai
Canada will be the world super power in the next 5 to 10 years. By then, the
USA will lose its access to cheap credit and will become a cesspool for haters
of high skilled and legal immigrants

------
kamaal
Speaking as an Indian, I think Canada is well poised to be the next big super
power, replacing the USA. The only other country that looks like can pull this
off is Germany.

Education together with freedom and tolerance always gives the best return for
the money you invest. These days its a given that most Indian students who
originally opted to go for US to do their MS degrees are now flocking to
Canada. Also a whole range of working professionals are going to Canada to
work, start companies and contribute to the economy of Canada.

Your economy and overall national ecosystem always benefits when you get
highly trained, hard working people with a strong work ethic as immigrants.
Not only do these people contribute to the economy disproportionately in
return for a good life, they also impart similar values to their kids.

At the same time its sad to see US take such a protectionist and anti-
immigrant stance, totally forgetting the important role immigrants have played
in the rich and success journey so far.

More dangerous than all these awesome immigrants not coming to your country is
they going else where. There is no infinite supply of great talent in the
world, and given how priorities align not everybody can be trained to be good
enough among your existing citizen-pool. The only real way of having a
disproportionate set of awesome people in your country, is to create an
environment where you can attract them from outside. Without these awesome
people no country can last a long time in front of a competition.

~~~
beloch
Speaking as a Canadian...

The U.S. still has ten times our population. With a population of just over 35
million, Canada is the world's 38th most populous country. That's a little
over two Mumbai's. Perhaps Canada will become more influential in the years to
come, but a superpower?

If you were simply referring to education, again, Canada is unlikely to
compete with the U.S.'s ivy league in the near future. Our universities have
higher standards than U.S. universities on average, but we lack both low-end
crapiversities and truly elite institutions that can generate the kind of
funding a U.S. ivy league university can. If you can't make it into the ivy
league than a Canadian university is a great option, but if you can...

Our government isn't investing significantly more than the U.S. on research on
a per capita basis, so the bulk of grant money in North America is still in
the U.S.. Also, our tech sector is sluggish and poorly paid as compared to
that of the U.S.. Lots of people like the idea of moving from the U.S. to
Canada... until they find out they'll be making half as much for the same
work!

No, Canada isn't poised to become a superpower anytime soon. The best we can
hope for is improvement. We're going to see a lot of articles like this from
U.S. authors because they're really not happy with their politics right now,
nor should they be. However, the reality is that Canada is still a bit of a
backwater. We're North America's Sweden. A nice place to live, but too small
to really make a huge impact.

~~~
avip
Wait Canada is "too small" now? You have deserted islands bigger than my
country. I bet you could fit the entire UK in a place with 0 inhabitants -
without breaking it to smaller chunks! That's a ridiculously hefty country...
it's infinite in any practical sense.

~~~
sumedh
> That's a ridiculously hefty country... it's infinite in any practical sense.

Isn't most of Canada just a snowy wasteland

