. . . In 2007, Canada significantly increased the number of students graduating in the science, math, computer science, and engineering disciplines. This increase helped to push Canada to an overall "A" in the Education and Skills report card.
Putting Canadian Education and Skills in context
In Canada, education is seen as the best route to earning a decent living and to enhancing personal growth and happiness. Educated people not only make healthier life choices but also contribute disproportionately to business innovation, productivity, and national economic performance.
What is the link between education and earnings?
A recent OECD report on education confirms that, with few exceptions, earnings increase with each level of education.1 In Canada, on average, for every $100 earned by a high-school graduate, a person with a university degree earns $171; a person with a college degree earns $111; and a person who did not graduate from high school earns only $75.
Several interesting observations can be made from the OECD study.
- The relative earnings benefit of a university education is higher in the U.S. than in Canada: a U.S. university graduate earns, on average, $180 for every $100 earned by a U.S. high-school graduate.
- In Norway and the Netherlands, there is little difference in earnings between college and university graduates.
- The relative penalty for not completing high school is lowest in Finland and highest in the United States.
Has Canada’s performance improved over time?
Yes. Although Canada continues to rank second after Finland, the gap between its performance and Finland’s has narrowed. Indeed, Canada joins Finland this year with an overall “A” grade for Education and Skills. As well, Canada’s ranking stayed above that of other peer countries.
Should we be concerned that Canada is ranked second behind Finland? Not necessarily. When compared with other more populous and geographically close peers, Canada is an exceptional performer. It even outperforms its largest trading partner, the U.S., by a sizable margin.
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 European countries. Thus, it lacks focus on work-based skills training and lifelong education that can be fostered outside traditional academic institutions.
Canada’s adult literacy rate is the other area requiring improvement: it is no better than it was a decade ago. Canadian adults who have not been fortunate enough to acquire basic levels of education in school are at risk of slipping through the cracks. Seven million working-age Canadian adults—about 4 in 10—do not have the literacy skills necessary to function in the workplace. Canada’s economic boom in the last 10 years has so far protected many of these people. Conference Board research shows, however, that people with low literacy skills have weaker attachments to the labour market and generally do not do well in economic downturns.
To maintain its high ranking and even improve its grade, Canadians need to have access to education and skills development outside the traditional school system. Currently, Canadian employers are notably low investors in workplace training programs. And of what they do invest, only a very small percentage—less than 2 per cent—goes to basic literacy skills. As a result, the Canadian training system does not fill the skills gap for people who, for various reasons, have not acquired skills at school.
Canada also underperforms in the highest levels of skills attainment. Canada produces relatively few graduates with Ph.Ds and graduates in math, science, computer science, and engineering. We need more graduates with advanced qualifications in these fields to enhance innovation and productivity growth—and ultimately to ensure a high and sustainable quality of life for all Canadians.
1 OECD,
Education at a Glance 2009 (Paris: OECD, 2009), p. 137.