Canadian citizens have a reason to celebrate their education system after the recent ranking in the international Pisa tests which put Canada’s system among the top 10 performing education systems worldwide. The 2015 Pisa tests on the 15-year olds put Canadian teenagers among the best educated young minds worldwide. And even those who find it hard with their studies, they still have access too reliable assistance from http://justbuyessay.com. (read a review about this site on https://sky-writer.com/justbuyessay-com-review ).Let’s discover how Canada slowly made its way to the charts of the top performing education systems worldwide. This is a topic that will hardly escape your tutor’s eye. Get ready.
The Program for the International Student Assessment (PISA) is a global programme coordinated by the organization of the economic cooperation and Development (OECD) that measures reading, Science and Mathematics literacy among 15-year old students from member countries. The assessment was first conducted in 2000 and thereafter scheduled to happen after every three years. The last in a row of evaluations took place in 2018, and the results await to be released on Tuesday 3, December 2019.
Canada Hits the Chart
In the 2015 assessment which was published on 6 December 2016, Canada claimed a place among the top performing education systems notably Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau (China), Chinese Taipei, Japan, BSJG (China), Korea, Switzerland, and Estonia. Even with the unusual trends displayed by Canada in the 2015 Pisa tests, the country is ranked fourth on the list of the ten best education systems globally. Further, into Canada’s advanced learning, a global analysis reveals that the country has the highest proportion of working-age adults who have achieved higher education.
Looking into the local education system in Canada, the country does not have an integrated national education system. It but instead relies on autonomous provinces which makes it fascinating to think of its potential, despite its being a prowling land mass, closely matching the standards of a city-state like Singapore. Recent Pisa ranking indicates that if individual Canadian provinces were evaluated as such, three provinces, Alberta, Quebec, and British Columbia would appear in the top five slots for Science.
One notable wild factor in Canada’s education setting is the high level of migrant students in its schooling population. But this, for Canada, has become more of a stepping stone than a setback. Majority of the Canadian young adults come from migrant families. The newly enrolled students from migrant backgrounds seem to rapidly integrate and post the performance that matches the prevailing standards.
The Secret behind the Success
How then did Canada make it that far? How did the system marked by different provincial policies get past the geographical neighbors such as the U.S and the European Nations with a shared culture like France and the UK?
The OECD’s education director, Andreas Schleicher says the answer lies in Canada’s “big uniting theme,” which is “equity.”
The difference in policies across different provinces does not replace the commitment to equal chances for better education. Andreas Schleicher affirms a strong sense of fairness in the education system and equal opportunities of access. This has enabled stellar performance for both the native and the migrant children.
Pisa tests indicate that children from newly migrated families score as high as the fully integrated children within three years of their arrival. Such rapid integration is hardly possible in many countries.
Equal Chances to Achieve the Best
According to Professor John Jerrim of the UCL Institute of Education, London, Canada’s high league table ranking is a reflection of the narrow socio-economic gap in the school results. Canada’s variations in score attributed to socio-economic differences was 9% in the recent Pisa results for Science. This proportion is a way lower proportion compared to 17% in Singapore and 20% in France. Canada’s is such a remarkably consistent system that cuts short the tail of underachievement which is often attributed to poverty. With little variations in the rich-poor student, spectrum is the slight variation in their performance.
The high population of migrant students does not seem to impact the delivery of their system. This has been attributed to the often well-educated and ambitious migrants coming from various countries like India, Pakistan, and China, who aggressively seek the best for their children. Prof Jerrim describes these families as those with “hunger” to succeed. Their often high expectations lead to better results for their children.
Another factor that contributes to Canada’s success story is the paying of its teachers according to international standards. The teaching profession in Canada is treated with the attention it deserves. The process of entry is highly selective.
Why Pisa?
Statistics from international standardized assessments can be instrumental in research on causal factors across and within education systems.
“The databases generated by large-scale international assessments have made it possible to carry out inventories and comparisons of education systems on an unprecedented scale on themes ranging from the conditions of learning mathematics and reading, to institutional autonomy and admission policies,” Mons noted.
These assessments allow for the development of typologies useful in the comparative statistical analysis of indicators of education performance leading to the identification of consequences that come with different policy choices.
Final Thought
Pisa, though, a vital tool for academic assessment, its focus on traditional academic subjects like math, reading and science does not sufficiently achieve the U.N Sustainable Development Goals set in 2015, which raised a bar for what education systems need to achieve. Among the essential achievements of the education systems is proficiency in traditional subjects such as reading and mathematics, global citizenship, early childhood development, and technical and vocational skills. This is what needs to be achieved for a country considered an education superpower.