Education in Canada
The Canadian education system is a system with much diversity.
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2 The Provinces 3 Grades 4 Canada Outside Quebec 5 Quebec 6 Secondary Education |
Education in Canada is a provincial responsibility and there are many variations between the provinces. Throughout Canada there are some constants. Education from grade one (age 6) to grade twelve (age 18) is free and all children are obligated to attend school until a certain age, usually well into their teens. While about one out of ten Canadians do not have any high school education and only one in seven have a university degree these statisitcs are both moving in a positive direction. Canada spends about 7% of 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 run, but there are some private religious colleges.
There are a great many differences between the educational systems of the various provinces.
Originally all the provinces had educational systems divided by religion, but most provinces have abolished these. Ontario, however, still has a large publicly funded Catholic school board. In Quebec the Catholic/Protestant divide was replaced with a French/English one in the 1990s.
Most Canadian education systems go up until grade twelve (age 18). Until 2002 Ontario had a grade thirteen known as the Ontario Academic Credit (OAC), but this was recently abolished. Quebec still has the Cegep which is a one or two year college program taken before university.
The main variation between the provinces with 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 wholy reliant on private sources of income. When Ontario had five years of high school, a three year Bachelors degree was common, but this option has now been eliminated. Today a four year undergraduate degree is standard.
The educational system in Canada. Primary education and secondary education together are sometimes referred to as K-12 (kindergarten through twelfth grade)). It should be noted that practice can vary from this general picture. Note that some of this is not consistent across the country; provinces and school districts have the freedom to decide their own school grade formats.
LEVEL/GRADE AGE (YEARS OLD)
See also: Education by country, List of Canadian UniversitiesCanada Wide
The Provinces
Divisions
Length of Study
Universities
Grades
Canada Outside Quebec
Quebec
Secondary Education
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 used to have the option of attending a fifth year of high school, but OAC or grade 13, as the fifth year was called, has now been phased out. In Quebec most students follow high school by attending a cegep, which is comparable to a junior college, and which is obligatory for Quebec students wishing to go on to university in Quebec.
