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Education in Canada



         


The Canadian education system is a diverse one that differs from province to province.

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Canada-Wide

Education in Canada is a provincial responsibility and, as such, there are many variations between the provinces. However, there are some constants. Education from Grade 1 (age 6) to Grade 12 (age 17) is free and all children are obligated to attend school until the age of 16. While about one out of ten Canadians do not have any high school education and only one in seven have a university degree, this is changing rapidly, partly due to changes in the labour market that require people to have a high school diploma and, in many cases, a university degree.

Canada spends about 7% of its GDP on education. One intervention by the federal government in the Canadian education system is in the matter of bilingualism. Since the Prime Ministership of Pierre Trudeau, education in both English and French has been available across Canada. At the grade school level, Canada has both private and public schools. Private schools are sometimes elite institutions such as Toronto's Upper Canada College but many are also smaller religious or speciality schools. In Canada, all universities are publicly funded, but there are some private degree-granting colleges that are typically religious in nature.

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Divisions by Religion and Language

Originally all the provinces had educational systems divided by religion, but most provinces have abolished these. Ontario and certain cities in Saskatchewan are the exception to this, as they still maintain publicly funded Catholic school boards. In Quebec, the Catholic/Protestant divide was replaced with a French/English one in the 1990s. Quebeckers must attend a French school up until CEGEP unless someone in their family previously attended an English-language school; even immigrants are not exempted from this law.

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Length of Study

Most Canadian education systems continue up to Grade 12 (age 17). Until 2002, Ontario had a "Grade 13" known as the Ontario Academic Credit (OAC), but this was recently abolished by the provincial government to cut costs. Secondary education in Quebec continues to Grade 11, and is typically followed by CEGEP, a two or three year college program taken after high school. Pre-university CEGEP programs are two years in Quebec (university for Quebeckers is three years), and vocational or professional programs are three years in duration. See Quebec education system.

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Pre-University

Primary education and secondary education combined are sometimes referred to as K-12 (Kindergarten through Grade 12). It should be noted that this structure can vary from school to school, and from province to province.

In Canada, secondary schooling, known as high school or secondary school, differs depending on what province one resides in. Normally it follows the American pattern; however in Quebec, for instance, high school lasts five years and is started earlier and finished at a younger age than elsewhere in Canada. In Ontario, high school students had the option of completing a fifth year of high school (which was required for admission to university), but OAC or Grade 13, as the fifth year was called, was phased out in 2002. Some students opt to complete a "fifth" high school year, but it is no longer called OAC and is only taken to spread out academic requirements in the new curriculum. In Quebec, most students follow high school by attending a CEGEP, which is comparable to a junior college in the United States, and is obligatory for Quebec students wishing to go on to university or to learn a trade in Quebec.

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Universities

The main variation between the provinces, with respect to universities, is the amount of funding they receive. Universities in Quebec and British Columbia receive the most funding and have the lowest tuitions. Universities in the Maritimes generally receive the least funding and some, like Acadia University, are almost wholly reliant on private funding. When Ontario had five years of high school, a three-year Bachelor's degree was common, but these degrees are being phased out in favour of the four-year degree (known as an Honours degree).

Bachelor's degrees in Quebec are typically three-year programs, as the two-year CEGEP pre-university program covers most first-year requirements at a traditional university. (In some cases, such as education and engineering, they are four-year programs.) CEGEP graduates who go on to universities outside of Quebec are sometimes able to receive up to one year of credit from a four-year undergraduate program. On the other hand, students who graduate from a four-year high school system (Grade 12) and undertake their studies at a Quebec university must complete a "Freshman" program before continuing on to the Bachelor's program.

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Canada Outside Quebec

Special note on Ontario:

Ontario schools offer what is known as Pre-Kindergarten for children 4 years of age. Alternatively, Pre-Kindergarten is referred to as Junior Kindergarten, while Kindergarten is used interchangeably with Senior Kindergarten. French schools in Ontario sometimes use Pré-Jardin and Jardin in the place of Quebec's Maternelle.

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Quebec

See also: Education by country, List of Canadian Universities






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