By Colin Alexander ——Bio and Archives--May 20, 2024
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Relevant for today’s Canada is the 1983 US report, A Nation at Risk: "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”
The continuity of civilization and national prosperity depends on the education of next generations and their preparation as a capable and willing labour force. But many employers find Canadian-born youth lacking the required education, skills and work ethic.
That’s one reason for lagging business investment and corresponding productivity. Only limited prowess exists beyond STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). In universities it survives mostly among immigrants and their children, and foreign students. A Canadian-born friend doing a degree in engineering at McGill told me she did the writing for group projects “because engineers can’t write.”
Current orthodoxy includes the falsehood that ethnic differences determine outcomes. But it’s bigotry—often racist bigotry—to lower expectations for perceived minorities. Many factors explain why youth of any background may need supplementary help.
The UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child requires signatories to enable children, regardless of ethnicity, for the maximum of their capability. Instead, however, the pursuit of equality of outcomes is the mantra of our time. Lagging students go up a grade anyway and those who could skip a grade get held back. That means some students could be ready for calculus alongside ones who........