What are the strengths and weaknesses of education in Canada?
Canada’s strength is in a public system that provides many Canadians with a good education and the basic skills they need to enter the workforce and achieve substantial success. The system’s primary focus is on delivering education to young people, aged 5 to 25. Over the past 15 years, raising the high-school graduation rate has been a major educational priority—a response to the growing consensus that high-school graduation is the prerequisite stepping stone to post-secondary education, now deemed essential to success in the labour market. While Canadians are at school, they become well educated (for the most part) in core subjects like mathematics, reading, and science. Canada now has the second-highest rate of high-school completion and the highest rate of college completion among the peer countries. Paradoxically, Canada’s strength also contributes to one of two areas requiring improvement. The Canadian system is heavily weighted toward school-acquired skills—more so than in Europe
