Education in Canada
Education in Canada is for the most part provided publicly, funded and overseen by federal, provincial, and local governments. Education is within provincial jurisdiction and the curriculum is overseen by the province. Education in Canada is generally divided into primary education, followed by secondary education and post-secondary. Education in both English and French is available in most places across Canada. Canada has a large number of universities, almost all of which are publicly funded. Established in 1663, Université Laval is the oldest post-secondary institution in Canada. The largest university is the University of Toronto with over 85,000 students. Four universities are regularly ranked among the top 100 world-wide, namely University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, McGill University, and McMaster University, with a total of 18 universities ranked in the top 500 worldwide.
According to a 2022 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Canada is the most educated country in the world; the country ranks first worldwide in the percentage of adults having tertiary education, with over 57 percent of Canadian adults having attained at least an undergraduate college or university degree. Canada spends an average of about 5.3 percent of its GDP on education. The country invests heavily in tertiary education., 89 percent of adults aged 25 to 64 have earned the equivalent of a high-school degree, compared to an OECD average of 75 percent.
The mandatory education age ranges between 5–7 to 16–18 years, contributing to an adult literacy rate of 99 percent. Just over 60,000 children are homeschooled in the country as of 2016. The Programme for International Student Assessment indicates Canadian students perform well above the OECD average, particularly in mathematics, science, and reading, ranking the overall knowledge and skills of Canadian 15-year-olds as the sixth-best in the world, although these scores have been declining in recent years. Canada is a well-performing OECD country in reading literacy, mathematics, and science, with the average student scoring 523.7, compared with the OECD average of 493 in 2015.
Timeline of introduction of compulsory education
- 1871:
- 1873:
- 1877:
- 1883:
- 1905:
- 1909:
- 1910:
- 1916:
- 1942:
- 1943:
Section 15(2) in Education
Data Collection and Remedial Programs
Several school boards, including the Toronto District School Board, have implemented identity-based data collection to assess achievement gaps among racialized students. These practices are designed to inform supports targeted toward specific demographic groups under the protection of Section 15.Critics have raised concerns about the transparency and methodology of these data practices. In some cases, it is unclear whether white students are included as a comparison group or fully represented in calculations measuring educational harm. Currently, there is no federal or provincial legislation that explicitly governs the inclusion or exclusion of demographic groups in school board-level education data. This has led to public debate regarding the fairness and legal scope of equity-focused interventions.
Assessment agencies
The Canadian Education Statistics Council works in collaboration with provincial and territorial departments that are responsible for education and training, on the Pan-Canadian Education Indicators Program. The CESC includes both the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada and Statistics Canada. The CESC submits an annual report, Education Indicators in Canada: An International Perspective, "supports the comparison of educational systems in Canada's provinces and territories with member countries".The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development coordinates the Programme for International Student Assessment that is intended to evaluate educational systems—OECD members and non-OECD members—by measuring 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading.
Canada-wide
The federal government's responsibilities in education are limited to the Canadian Military Colleges, the Canadian Coast Guard College, and funding the education of Indigenous peoples; all other matters of education in Canada fall under provincial responsibility. As such, there is much variation in the management of education from province to province.Image:Train-classroom.jpg|thumb|200px|1950 Canadian School Train. Pupils attend classes at Nemegos near Chapleau, Ontario.
In 2016, 8.5% of men and 5.4% of women aged 25 to 34 had less than a secondary school diploma. In many places, publicly funded secondary school courses are offered to the adult population. The ratio of secondary school graduates versus non diploma-holders is changing rapidly, partly due to changes in the labour market that require people to have a secondary school diploma and, in many cases, a university degree. Nonetheless, in 2010, 51% of Canadians had completed a tertiary education, the highest rate in the world. The majority of schools, 67%, are co-educational.
Canada spends about 5.2% of its GDP on education in 2020. The country invests heavily in tertiary education. Recent reports suggest tuition fee increases across all provinces ranging from a low of.3% in Ontario to a high of 5.7% in Alberta due to a province-wide restructuring of fees. Since the adoption of section 23 of the Constitution Act, 1982, education in both English and French has been available in most places across Canada. French Second Language education/French Immersion is available to anglophone students across Canada. English Second Language education/English Immersion is also available in Quebec's French language schools.
According to an announcement of Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Canada is introducing a new, fast-track system to let foreign students and graduates with Canadian work experience become permanent eligible residents in Canada.
Most schools have introduced one or more initiatives such as programs in Native studies, antiracism, Aboriginal cultures and crafts; visits by elders and other community members; and content in areas like indigenous languages, Aboriginal spirituality, indigenous knowledge of nature, and tours to indigenous heritage sites. Although these classes are offered, most appear to be limited by the area or region in which students reside. "The curriculum is designed to elicit development and quality of people's cognition through the guiding of accommodations of individuals to their natural environment and their changing social order"
Subjects that typically get assessed assume greater importance than non-assessed subjects or facets of the curriculum.
Some scholars view academics as a form of "soft power" helping to educate and to create positive attitudes, although there is criticism that educators are merely telling students what to think, instead of how to think for themselves, and using up a large proportion of classroom time in the process. Social promotion policies, grade inflation, lack of corrective feedback for students, teaching methods that slow the development of soft skills compared to past decades, reform mathematics, and the failure to objectively track student progress have also forced secondary schools and colleges to lower their academic standards.
According to a November 2011 Maclean's opinion piece, Alberta's education system provides better results compared to other provinces, partially because of Alberta's rigorous "provincial standardized exams". According to a 2011 study by the University of Saskatchewan, Albertans have higher grades in university due to the comprehensive education compared to other provinces. Grades are also notably boosted when applying for many universities in Canada to entice Albertan students to go to those universities, such as the University of British Columbia. This also explains why the University of Alberta is quite competitive when applying with an out-of-province education.
Divisions by religion and language
The Constitution of Canada provides constitutional protections for some types of publicly funded religious-based and language-based school systems.Section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867 contains a guarantee for publicly funded religious-based separate schools, provided the separate schools were established by law prior to the province joining Confederation. Court cases have established that this provision did not apply to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island, since those provinces did not provide a legal guarantee for separate schools prior to Confederation. The provision did originally apply to Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Newfoundland and Labrador, since these provinces did have pre-existing separate schools. This constitutional provision was repealed for Quebec by a constitutional amendment in 1997, and for Newfoundland and Labrador in 1998. The constitutional provision continues to apply to Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. There is a similar federal statutory provision that applies to the Northwest Territories. The issue of separate schools is also addressed in Section 29 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which reaffirms the rights of separate schools found in the Constitution Act, 1867.
Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right of citizens who were educated in the minority language in a particular province to have their children educated in the minority language in publicly funded schools. In practice, this guarantee means that there are publicly funded English schools in Quebec, and publicly funded French schools in the other provinces and the territories.
Quebec students must attend a French school up until the end of secondary school unless one of their parents qualifies as a rights-holder under s. 23 of the Charter. In Ontario, French-language schools automatically admit students recognized under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and may admit non-francophone students through the board's admissions committee consisting of the school principal, a school superintendent, and a teacher.
An example of how schools can be divided by language and religion is visible in Toronto, which has four public school boards operating in the city. They include two English first language school boards, the separate Toronto Catholic District School Board and secular Toronto District School Board; and two French boards, the separate Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir and secular Conseil scolaire Viamonde.