CTV.ca News Staff
Canadian kids are getting good grades when it comes to reading, math and science. That's according to an international study that placed Canada consistently in the top five, despite large class sizes.
The study, called "Education at a Glance," was put out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD), an international think tank. It compared the national education costs, staffing and test results of 32 countries within the OECD.
While Canada spends significantly less on education than other countries, only Finland outperformed it on the literacy component of the test administered to 15-year-olds from OECD countries.
Canada did well in mathematics, trailing Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Finland. It also came in the top five in science, along with South Korea, Japan, Finland and the United Kingdom.
The results were surprising for several reasons. For one, class sizes in Canada are among the largest in the Western world. The student-to-teacher ratio in Canada's secondary schools in 2001 was 17.8 students per teacher. That is above the country mean of 13.9. In both primary and secondary schools in 2001, there were 55.5 teachers per 1,000 students in Canada.
Canada also spends much less on education than some other industrialized nations. For example, the U.S. spends $10,240 annually per student. That's compared to $7,764 US in Canada.
Despite the disparity in spending, the U.S. fared much worse than Canada on all measures. It placed 14th in science, 15th in reading and 19th in math.
The results of the OECD study were based on 2001 statistics and studies from 1995 to 2001.
Yup, sounds about right!