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How Canada became an education superpower

240 points by iamjdg 9y ago

rvern 9y ago
Non-AMP version: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40708421 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40708421.
- dang 9y ago
  Thanks, we changed it.
mjehanzeb 9y ago
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 9y ago
  Equality of opportunity is what is important, not equality of outcome, which is what some people try to conflate it with.
  - satya71 9y ago
    Equality of opportunity is not measurable. Equality of outcome is. Given that we know some variables such as race, sex, and sexual preferences shouldn't affect outcome, we should look for equality of outcome without correlation with these variables.
    - alacombe 9y ago
      oh, so "being a nurse" should not correlate with "being a female", or "working in STEM" should not correlate with "being good at math and having with poor verbal/social skills". Am I correct ?
      - dang 9y ago
        This breaks the HN guidelines, which say: "Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them." So would you please not take threads in that direction, whence they never return?
        alacombe 9y ago
        I do believe there is something directly related to this thread. My intention was to point out the fact that the concept of "equality of outcome" is an erroneous metric. I specifically amended the second part of my comment to omit orientation of gender and focus on the personality traits. That is, two grade A student may end up in totally different outcome, skewing statistics which would limit themselves to phenotypical attributes.
        dang 9y ago
        The topic is education in Canada, not equality of outcome vs. equality of opportunity. Off-topic tangents can be fine when they're concrete, but generic tangents inevitably head off in a worse direction, and generic ideological tangents are the worst. More on this point at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14912821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14912821 if anyone's interested.
    - kul 9y ago
      It might not be strictly measurable, but giving everyone access to free, high quality education and healthcare get you a long way there.
    - logicchains 9y ago
      >Equality of opportunity is not measurable. Equality of outcome is. Given that we know some variables such as race, sex, and sexual preferences shouldn't affect outcome, we should look for equality of outcome without correlation with these variables. Why shouldn't these variables affect outcomes? To assert that any two groups should have identical economic outcomes, one first has to prove that those two groups are identical with regard to all preferences and genetic factors that can affect economic outcomes. For example, sex may correlate with career choice, and career choice correlates with economic outcomes. Race has been found in some studies to correlate with results on IQ tests, which have been found to correlate with economic outcomes. To assert that such factors shouldn't affect economic outcomes, one hence first has to rule out all such potential correlations.
      - logicchains 9y ago
        To anyone who downvoted, I'd be happy to see arguments refuting any of the following: * A correlation between career choice and economic outcomes. * A correlation between sex and career preferences. * A correlation between race and IQ test results. * A correlation between IQ test results and economic outcomes.
  - coliveira 9y ago
    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.
    - alacombe 9y ago
      This is nonsense. If you give 100 people the same starting point, you'll very likely end up with 100 different outcome. Also, even if you have an "average" equality of outcome, you'll still find a small fraction of those left out screaming about inequality and how unfair the system has been to them.
      - quadrangle 9y ago
        The best framing is the headwind/tailwind issue. We feel the headwinds (obstacles in our way) and take our tailwinds for granted (the privileges and luck we enjoy). There's lots of evidence that the successful in our society are largely deluded in how much they downplay the significance of their privileges and luck. The worse-off people aren't any smarter, but when everyone is mainly aware only of headwinds and not tailwinds, those who happen to have less tailwinds inherently are aware of a greater percentage of their context.
        macspoofing 9y ago
        >The best framing is the headwind/tailwind issue. We feel the headwinds (obstacles in our way) and take our tailwinds for granted (the privileges and luck we enjoy). Is that the best framing? Are you sure it isn't a seriously flawed analogy since it is based on one factor explaining a very simple outcome? In reality, a typical person will have hundreds of factors associated with them some of which give them a competitive advantage when compared to the average and some of which will be detrimental to them in some way. A tall handsome straight white male with a crippling social anxiety will struggle in life in ways that an outgoing, short, stocky, gay black man may not. A middle-class black woman from a two person household in NY will have advantages that a poor white male from a single-parent household in rural Alabama will not. Even some specific combination of particular skills (none of which the individual excels in) can infer privilege. Being an average developer with average technical ability, with average business development instinct, average personability and people skills, and average level of leadership skills and some particular career choices - may lend you a Director or C-level executive at a technical corporation. Leftists and more specifically, leftists that subscribe to the ideology of intersectionality, tend to only identify one or two of factors (usually sexual orientation, skin color, and/or gender) as defining success or failure. It's lazy and wrong. >There's lots of evidence that the successful in our society are largely deluded in how much they downplay the significance of their privileges and luck. I'll spin this around. Even if you are a victim in some way, deluding yourself that you're not is much more preferable than accepting reality. Once you internalize that your lot in life is due to factors outside of your control it really does kill your incentive to try and change it.
kamaal 9y ago
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.
- thesmallestcat 9y ago
  Canada has a smaller population than California, it doesn't have enough cannonfodder to be a superpower.
  - myusernameisok 9y ago
    This is very disingenuous in my opinion, California is the most populous state. Most of Canada is not populated. Most Canadians live within the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor [1]. Its a fairly small (densely-populated) area compared to the total area of Canada and especially compared to California. For example, If southern Ontario were a state then it would be the 6th most populous state [2] [3] (between Illinois and Pennsylvania in population) and also more dense than Illinois. I feel like Americans don't really appreciate how most Canadian cities are so close to the border. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City%E2%80%93Windsor_Corridor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City%E2%80%93Windsor_Co... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ontario https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ontario
schwarrrtz 9y ago
> 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 9y ago
  Your lack of prejudice is really admirable.
  - dublinclontarf 9y ago
    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 9y ago
      "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 9y ago
        > "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.
forkLding 9y ago
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-students-among-best-global-performers-in-science-math-1.3883341 http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canada-s-15-year-old-stude... For more info from OECD on results: http://www.oecd.org/education/Singapore-tops-latest-OECD-PISA-global-education-survey.htm http://www.oecd.org/education/Singapore-tops-latest-OECD-PIS...
zhemao 9y ago
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.
- jmknoll 9y ago
  While we've got the cynicism out, I'll do you one better. I think its that Americans on the whole just don't care about public anything. Public education, public healthcare, public transportation, public libraries, public lands. Decades of the Republican party screaming that government is the enemy while gutting every public institution that it can get its hands on has led to a real, tangible decline in the quality of public services. Then from here you get into a vicious cycle of "Wow, our train system is horrible. But I'm already paying for my car; I don't want to have to pay for that chump who can't afford a car to get to work." Or "What a shame about the state of our local school. But I'm already paying for little Billy to go to Catholic school. Why should I pay for the neighbor's education as well?" Not sure about how we get ourselves out of this mess. But I feel like just generally giving a shit about our neighbors and communities would be a good start. Seems like we're heading in the wrong direction for the time being though.
  - zhemao 9y ago
    Very true. I don't think the Republicans are solely to blame though. I live in the SF Bay Area, definitely a very blue part of the country. Despite pretty steep taxes, our public transportation and public schools aren't much to look at. Better than other parts of the country, probably, but it ain't Canada. Even when there's a political will, there doesn't seem to be much know-how in how to actually provision public infrastructure and services in an efficient way.
  - ghufran_syed 9y ago
    Most public education is run by cities in the US, and controlled locally. If the "Republicans" are the problem, shouldn't we see better education results in Democrat controlled areas, of which there are clearly many in the US? Seeing as there is no such difference to my knowledge, I would suggest that your assertion is unsupported by the facts.
joss82 9y ago
> 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 9y ago
  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.
  - watwut 9y ago
    "seems to indicate that salary isn't everything, on the contrary." Higher salary for teachers harm, higher salaries for programmers are common sense measure to attract better quality more passionate programmers.
  - pertymcpert 9y ago
    Maybe he or she is French and has experience of these issues? Just a complete guess though.
- macspoofing 9y ago
  Pay and job security are usually lumped in together but aren't quite the same. I think most people would support a relatively good wage for teachers if there was more accountability. Even in Canada it is notoriously hard to fire bad teachers.
lwansbrough 9y ago
> 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 9y ago
  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.
devrandomguy 9y ago
> 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_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_23_of_the_Canadian_Cha...
- am1988 9y ago
  > It effectively ensures that we are all exposed to two languages in school French education is a complete joke in large parts of the country.
  - refurb 9y ago
    I grew up in Canada and had the exact same thought. I was also going to say that French Canadian culture is pretty dam similar to Anglophone culture when put on the cultural spectrum of the world. Not super exotic.
- vkou 9y ago
  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.
a_imho 9y ago
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
brutalistcode 9y ago
> 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-immigration-policy-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/28/opinion/canada-immigratio...
erikb 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- NumberCruncher 9y ago
  >> It seems to me like every second country is an education superpower Everybody is above average.
ThomPete 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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
matthewcanty 9y ago
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.
awkwarddaturtle 9y ago
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.
- UseStrict 9y ago
  Someone hasn't had their coffee yet. We do have top-tier universities (UBC, University of Toronto, UWaterloo), who have produced outstanding research and individuals who went on to do great work abroad and developing here at home. We're home to top-tier companies like Shopify. Plus our education is much more consistent across the board, not as pay-to-win like America. And how is 150 years of forming the Dominion of Canada not something to celebrate? "150 years ago, Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia – united to create the Canadian Confederation, called the Dominion of Canada. On account of the British North America Act that became law July 1st 1867, these British colonies would be recognized as an independent nation." http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/france/150Canada150.aspx?lang=eng http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/france/150Canada150.asp...
  - awkwarddaturtle 9y ago
    > We do have top-tier universities (UBC, University of Toronto, UWaterloo) I agree. I didn't deny that. Now compare how many top universities we have in the US? If the US has hundreds of top universities and Canada has a handful, how does that make canada an education superpower? If canada is an education superpower, then is north korea a nuclear superpower? Isn't the word superpower supposed to mean something? > We're home to top-tier companies like Shopify. Shopify is top-tier? It has revenues of $151 million/year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopify https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopify >On account of the British North America Act that became law July 1st 1867, these British colonies would be recognized as an independent nation." But they weren't an independent nation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Act_1982 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Act_1982 Canada became "independent" in 1983. Canada celebrated its first Canada Day in 1983. To claim canada is 150 years old is a verifiable lie. Listen, canada is a wonderful nation. I have nothing against canada. My complaint is about the article. Its assertions don't make any sense.
pmilot 9y ago
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-among-french-speaking-students-worry-minister-1.2771757 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/dismal-dropout-rates-...
- rubatuga 9y ago
  Also, Manitoba is ranked almost last within Canada for science, reading, and math
calvinbhai 9y ago
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
hackermailman 9y ago
>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 9y ago
  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...
  - hackermailman 9y ago
    As an anecdote my friend's UVIC compsci grad class nobody stayed here and all took offers in Seattle instead because entry level salaries there are at least twice what you would make here. These US companies all directly recruit grads on campus too with large signing bonuses. It's the same story for nurses, if you have a nursing degree in Canada, US companies again directly recruit on campus and offer 3x the salary and signing bonuses, housing allowance benefits, ect.
  - samBergeron 9y ago
    > 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.
alex98 9y ago
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.
slm_HN 9y ago
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.
jimpick 9y ago
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.
g9yuayon 9y ago
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.
Philosopher 9y ago
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.
sebnap 9y ago
It's obviously because of Jordan B. Peterson.

240 points by iamjdg 9y ago

rvern 9y ago

Non-AMP version: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40708421 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40708421.

dang 9y ago
Thanks, we changed it.

mjehanzeb 9y ago

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 9y ago
Equality of opportunity is what is important, not equality of outcome, which is what some people try to conflate it with.
- satya71 9y ago
  Equality of opportunity is not measurable. Equality of outcome is. Given that we know some variables such as race, sex, and sexual preferences shouldn't affect outcome, we should look for equality of outcome without correlation with these variables.
  - alacombe 9y ago
    oh, so "being a nurse" should not correlate with "being a female", or "working in STEM" should not correlate with "being good at math and having with poor verbal/social skills". Am I correct ?
    - dang 9y ago
      This breaks the HN guidelines, which say: "Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them." So would you please not take threads in that direction, whence they never return?
      - alacombe 9y ago
        I do believe there is something directly related to this thread. My intention was to point out the fact that the concept of "equality of outcome" is an erroneous metric. I specifically amended the second part of my comment to omit orientation of gender and focus on the personality traits. That is, two grade A student may end up in totally different outcome, skewing statistics which would limit themselves to phenotypical attributes.
        dang 9y ago
        The topic is education in Canada, not equality of outcome vs. equality of opportunity. Off-topic tangents can be fine when they're concrete, but generic tangents inevitably head off in a worse direction, and generic ideological tangents are the worst. More on this point at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14912821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14912821 if anyone's interested.
  - kul 9y ago
    It might not be strictly measurable, but giving everyone access to free, high quality education and healthcare get you a long way there.
  - logicchains 9y ago
    >Equality of opportunity is not measurable. Equality of outcome is. Given that we know some variables such as race, sex, and sexual preferences shouldn't affect outcome, we should look for equality of outcome without correlation with these variables. Why shouldn't these variables affect outcomes? To assert that any two groups should have identical economic outcomes, one first has to prove that those two groups are identical with regard to all preferences and genetic factors that can affect economic outcomes. For example, sex may correlate with career choice, and career choice correlates with economic outcomes. Race has been found in some studies to correlate with results on IQ tests, which have been found to correlate with economic outcomes. To assert that such factors shouldn't affect economic outcomes, one hence first has to rule out all such potential correlations.
    - logicchains 9y ago
      To anyone who downvoted, I'd be happy to see arguments refuting any of the following: * A correlation between career choice and economic outcomes. * A correlation between sex and career preferences. * A correlation between race and IQ test results. * A correlation between IQ test results and economic outcomes.
- coliveira 9y ago
  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.
  - alacombe 9y ago
    This is nonsense. If you give 100 people the same starting point, you'll very likely end up with 100 different outcome. Also, even if you have an "average" equality of outcome, you'll still find a small fraction of those left out screaming about inequality and how unfair the system has been to them.
    - quadrangle 9y ago
      The best framing is the headwind/tailwind issue. We feel the headwinds (obstacles in our way) and take our tailwinds for granted (the privileges and luck we enjoy). There's lots of evidence that the successful in our society are largely deluded in how much they downplay the significance of their privileges and luck. The worse-off people aren't any smarter, but when everyone is mainly aware only of headwinds and not tailwinds, those who happen to have less tailwinds inherently are aware of a greater percentage of their context.
      - macspoofing 9y ago
        >The best framing is the headwind/tailwind issue. We feel the headwinds (obstacles in our way) and take our tailwinds for granted (the privileges and luck we enjoy). Is that the best framing? Are you sure it isn't a seriously flawed analogy since it is based on one factor explaining a very simple outcome? In reality, a typical person will have hundreds of factors associated with them some of which give them a competitive advantage when compared to the average and some of which will be detrimental to them in some way. A tall handsome straight white male with a crippling social anxiety will struggle in life in ways that an outgoing, short, stocky, gay black man may not. A middle-class black woman from a two person household in NY will have advantages that a poor white male from a single-parent household in rural Alabama will not. Even some specific combination of particular skills (none of which the individual excels in) can infer privilege. Being an average developer with average technical ability, with average business development instinct, average personability and people skills, and average level of leadership skills and some particular career choices - may lend you a Director or C-level executive at a technical corporation. Leftists and more specifically, leftists that subscribe to the ideology of intersectionality, tend to only identify one or two of factors (usually sexual orientation, skin color, and/or gender) as defining success or failure. It's lazy and wrong. >There's lots of evidence that the successful in our society are largely deluded in how much they downplay the significance of their privileges and luck. I'll spin this around. Even if you are a victim in some way, deluding yourself that you're not is much more preferable than accepting reality. Once you internalize that your lot in life is due to factors outside of your control it really does kill your incentive to try and change it.

kamaal 9y ago

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.

thesmallestcat 9y ago
Canada has a smaller population than California, it doesn't have enough cannonfodder to be a superpower.
- myusernameisok 9y ago
  This is very disingenuous in my opinion, California is the most populous state. Most of Canada is not populated. Most Canadians live within the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor [1]. Its a fairly small (densely-populated) area compared to the total area of Canada and especially compared to California. For example, If southern Ontario were a state then it would be the 6th most populous state [2] [3] (between Illinois and Pennsylvania in population) and also more dense than Illinois. I feel like Americans don't really appreciate how most Canadian cities are so close to the border. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City%E2%80%93Windsor_Corridor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City%E2%80%93Windsor_Co... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ontario https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ontario

schwarrrtz 9y ago

> 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 9y ago
Your lack of prejudice is really admirable.
- dublinclontarf 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    "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 9y ago
      > "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.

forkLding 9y ago

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-students-among-best-global-performers-in-science-math-1.3883341 http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canada-s-15-year-old-stude... For more info from OECD on results: http://www.oecd.org/education/Singapore-tops-latest-OECD-PISA-global-education-survey.htm http://www.oecd.org/education/Singapore-tops-latest-OECD-PIS...

zhemao 9y ago

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.

jmknoll 9y ago
While we've got the cynicism out, I'll do you one better. I think its that Americans on the whole just don't care about public anything. Public education, public healthcare, public transportation, public libraries, public lands. Decades of the Republican party screaming that government is the enemy while gutting every public institution that it can get its hands on has led to a real, tangible decline in the quality of public services. Then from here you get into a vicious cycle of "Wow, our train system is horrible. But I'm already paying for my car; I don't want to have to pay for that chump who can't afford a car to get to work." Or "What a shame about the state of our local school. But I'm already paying for little Billy to go to Catholic school. Why should I pay for the neighbor's education as well?" Not sure about how we get ourselves out of this mess. But I feel like just generally giving a shit about our neighbors and communities would be a good start. Seems like we're heading in the wrong direction for the time being though.
- zhemao 9y ago
  Very true. I don't think the Republicans are solely to blame though. I live in the SF Bay Area, definitely a very blue part of the country. Despite pretty steep taxes, our public transportation and public schools aren't much to look at. Better than other parts of the country, probably, but it ain't Canada. Even when there's a political will, there doesn't seem to be much know-how in how to actually provision public infrastructure and services in an efficient way.
- ghufran_syed 9y ago
  Most public education is run by cities in the US, and controlled locally. If the "Republicans" are the problem, shouldn't we see better education results in Democrat controlled areas, of which there are clearly many in the US? Seeing as there is no such difference to my knowledge, I would suggest that your assertion is unsupported by the facts.

joss82 9y ago

> 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 9y ago
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.
- watwut 9y ago
  "seems to indicate that salary isn't everything, on the contrary." Higher salary for teachers harm, higher salaries for programmers are common sense measure to attract better quality more passionate programmers.
- pertymcpert 9y ago
  Maybe he or she is French and has experience of these issues? Just a complete guess though.
macspoofing 9y ago
Pay and job security are usually lumped in together but aren't quite the same. I think most people would support a relatively good wage for teachers if there was more accountability. Even in Canada it is notoriously hard to fire bad teachers.

lwansbrough 9y ago

> 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 9y ago
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.

devrandomguy 9y ago

> 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_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_23_of_the_Canadian_Cha...

am1988 9y ago
> It effectively ensures that we are all exposed to two languages in school French education is a complete joke in large parts of the country.
- refurb 9y ago
  I grew up in Canada and had the exact same thought. I was also going to say that French Canadian culture is pretty dam similar to Anglophone culture when put on the cultural spectrum of the world. Not super exotic.
vkou 9y ago
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.

a_imho 9y ago

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

brutalistcode 9y ago

> 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-immigration-policy-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/28/opinion/canada-immigratio...

erikb 9y ago

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 9y ago
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.
deleted 9y ago
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NumberCruncher 9y ago
>> It seems to me like every second country is an education superpower Everybody is above average.

ThomPete 9y ago

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 9y ago
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

matthewcanty 9y ago

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.

awkwarddaturtle 9y ago

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.

UseStrict 9y ago
Someone hasn't had their coffee yet. We do have top-tier universities (UBC, University of Toronto, UWaterloo), who have produced outstanding research and individuals who went on to do great work abroad and developing here at home. We're home to top-tier companies like Shopify. Plus our education is much more consistent across the board, not as pay-to-win like America. And how is 150 years of forming the Dominion of Canada not something to celebrate? "150 years ago, Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia – united to create the Canadian Confederation, called the Dominion of Canada. On account of the British North America Act that became law July 1st 1867, these British colonies would be recognized as an independent nation." http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/france/150Canada150.aspx?lang=eng http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/france/150Canada150.asp...
- awkwarddaturtle 9y ago
  > We do have top-tier universities (UBC, University of Toronto, UWaterloo) I agree. I didn't deny that. Now compare how many top universities we have in the US? If the US has hundreds of top universities and Canada has a handful, how does that make canada an education superpower? If canada is an education superpower, then is north korea a nuclear superpower? Isn't the word superpower supposed to mean something? > We're home to top-tier companies like Shopify. Shopify is top-tier? It has revenues of $151 million/year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopify https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopify >On account of the British North America Act that became law July 1st 1867, these British colonies would be recognized as an independent nation." But they weren't an independent nation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Act_1982 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Act_1982 Canada became "independent" in 1983. Canada celebrated its first Canada Day in 1983. To claim canada is 150 years old is a verifiable lie. Listen, canada is a wonderful nation. I have nothing against canada. My complaint is about the article. Its assertions don't make any sense.

pmilot 9y ago

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

rubatuga 9y ago
Also, Manitoba is ranked almost last within Canada for science, reading, and math

calvinbhai 9y ago

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

hackermailman 9y ago

>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 9y ago
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...
- hackermailman 9y ago
  As an anecdote my friend's UVIC compsci grad class nobody stayed here and all took offers in Seattle instead because entry level salaries there are at least twice what you would make here. These US companies all directly recruit grads on campus too with large signing bonuses. It's the same story for nurses, if you have a nursing degree in Canada, US companies again directly recruit on campus and offer 3x the salary and signing bonuses, housing allowance benefits, ect.
- samBergeron 9y ago
  > 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.

alex98 9y ago

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.

slm_HN 9y ago

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.

jimpick 9y ago

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.

g9yuayon 9y ago

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.

Philosopher 9y ago

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.

sebnap 9y ago

It's obviously because of Jordan B. Peterson.