Canada Education System Better than US and Europe

When there are debates about the world's top performing education systems, the names that usually get mentioned are the Asian powerhouses such as Singapore and South Korea or the Nordic know-alls, such as Finland or Norway.

But with much less recognition, Canada has climbed into the top tier of international rankings.

In the most recent round of international Pisa tests, Canada was one of a handful of countries to appear in the top 10 for maths, science and reading.

The tests, run by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), are a major study of educational performance and show Canada's teenagers as among the best educated in the world.

They are far ahead of geographical neighbours such as the US and European countries with strong cultural ties like the UK and France.

At university level, Canada has the world's highest proportion of working-age adults who have been through higher education - 55% compared with an average in OECD countries of 35%.

Inspiring Story of Young African! Wins $4000 Scholarship to Study Mining Engineering in Canada

A young Nigerian girl, living in Toronto, has recently proven that your surroundings don’t have to be a hinderance to your potential for greatness and achievements.

According to the report by CTV News, since moving to Toronto 5 years ago, Hafeezat Ameen, lived in a low income neighbourhood. However, she didn’t let that stop her.

She worked hard at school, (also tutoring) and worked at Tim Hortons to make some extra cash to support her family. Today, she is one of two women who have been awarded $4,000 scholarship for the mining engineering program at Laurentian University.

Everything Is Mathematics

It is the beginning of spring down here south and I joined the fellas for a game of soccer for the first time in the year. I noticed changes in people and the vibe was different compared to the previous season. Halfway into our warm-ups, a fight ensued between two ladies who came to cheer their man friend. I was flabbergasted that two young ladies in their twenties who appeared decent in demeanor could result into fatal violence in open field.

We paused the session to stop the scuffle but it seems a larger sect would like to see the end of the fight. In fact, it was like a round match of women UFC match, only that I do not think these ones have insurance to cover injuries suffered from broken bottles. There it dawned on me that everything is mathematics. Mathematics resolve truth by seeking out patterns, permutations, shapes, motions, logic, structure, change, space,… probability

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Halifax's new $57m 129,000 sq. ft library opens to public

Visitor's to Halifax's new $57-million library wait outside in order to get a first look at the building.

CP
The new Halifax Central Library officially opened its doors to the public Saturday.
At an estimated cost of $57.6 million the building has been touted as the new architectural centrepiece of the city's downtown core.

The 129,000 square foot facility features a larger collection of books than the building it is replacing, as well as meeting and study rooms, technology areas for computers, cafes and a 300-seat auditorium.

Halifax Mayor Mike Savage calls the building, which features a cantilevered rectangular glass box on the top, a "powerful and positive statement" about the city's aspirations.

Danish architectural firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen designed the building with Halifax partners Fowler Bauld & Mitchell.

The federal government is contributing up to $18.3 million and the Nova Scotia government $13 million towards the cost of the project, with the remainder being funded through the municipality and a public funding campaign.

US Schools OffersProspective Students Beyonce And Rihanna Courses

 

Come April 2015, students at the University of Texas, Austin ‎will be‎ adding a new course that will focus on Rihanna and Beyonce. This new course,  Beyonce Feminism, Rihanna Womanism, will not be available until Spring 2015, but the University has already released some details about the curriculum.

According to the University, “They will not be simply listening to Beyoncé and Rihanna for fun or even comparing the roles of Beyoncé and Rihanna in popular culture, rather, students will be studying how the lyrics, music videos, and actions of these women express various aspects of black feminism such as violence, economic opportunity, sexuality, standards of beauty, and creative self-expression.”

 

The course, according to its listing, “Hopes for students to understand the role black feminism plays in culture as well as everyday". 

 

A number of colleges have already made similar moves; including ‎Georgetown University which offers a sociology course based on Jay-Z, Harvard University which offers a course on Tupac Shakur and Rutgers University which already offers its own Beyonce course titled "Politicizing Beyonce."

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Science | Calgary university gets $10M for oilsands research

Metro file photo - The University of Calgary's main campus entrance.

Bill GravelandThe Canadian Press

Nanotechnology similar to that used to kill tumours in cancer patients could be adapted to improve in situ oil recovery in Alberta’s oilsands, says an international researcher.

Stanley Bryant, a world-leading nanotechnology expert from the University of Texas in Austin, was introduced Thursday as the latest Canada Excellence Research Chair at the University of Calgary.

A federal energy research program awards world-renowned scientists and their teams up to $10 million over seven years to establish research programs.

“I don’t need to remind this audience of the world-class petroleum resource here in Alberta. I don’t need to remind this audience either of the litany of challenges associated with that resource,” Bryant said at a University of Calgary ceremony.

“What we want to do is reduce the environmental impact of existing development strategies to come up with entirely new ways to extract energy involving little or even no environmental impact.”

Bryant will receive $10 million from the federal government and another $10 million from the university to create a chair for materials engineering for unconventional oil reservoirs at the Schulich School of Engineering and Faculty of Science.

Australian Richard Flanagan wins Man Booker prize

RIchard Flanagan the Man Booker Prize ceremony

Mark Brown | Guardian

The first Man Booker prize to allow American nominees was on Tuesday night won by an Australian, with Richard Flanagan triumphing for a “magnificent novel of love and war” that tells the harrowing stories of prisoners and captors on the Burma railway.

Flanagan won for The Narrow Road to the Deep North as he became the third Australian to win the prize, following on from Thomas Keneally and Peter Carey.

He instinctively hugged the Duchess of Cornwall as he received the award at a black tie dinner in London.

“In Australia the Man Booker prize is sometimes seen as something of a chicken raffle,” he joked. “I just didn’t expect to end up the chicken.”

The novel is an incredibly personal book for Flanagan, whose father was a survivor of Japan’s campaign to build the railway. He died aged 98 on the day Flanagan emailed his final draft to his publisher.

“I grew up, as did my five siblings, as children of the Death Railway,” Flanagan said. “We carried many incommunicable things and I realised at a certain point … that I would have to write this book.”

Over 12 years he wrote five drafts that he deemed deficient and burned, but he was intent on finishing before his father died.

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Germany Makes University Tuition Free. Canada Wake Up!

Imagine attending university and not having to pay tuition fees of any kind. Wouldn’t that be fabulous? Well, this is the case in Germany.

Germany’s higher education institutions have traditionally been free. However, in 2006, Germany decided to start charging tuition fees.

And now, the country has had a change of heart again. Government officials recently announced that tuition for public universities will once again be free – and this law also applies for international students, The Independent reports.

Canada Falling University Education World Rankings

university of  Toronto

Universities in east Asia are focusing more on education and closing the gap with Canada in the latest global university rankings, a former Canadian university dean says.

But the Times Higher Education rankings also put too much emphasis on reputation, according to Ken Coates, a former university dean and author of the book 'What to Consider if You're Considering University.'

The 2014-15 Times Higher Education rankings listed only eight Canadian universities among the world's top 200 this week, and only one Canadian university among the top 20. The University of Toronto held its spot from last year at 20th position, while six other Canadian institutions fell down the rankings and only one jumped up into the top 200.

"The gap between the top 200 is relatively small," Coates via Skype from Fort McMurray, Alta. on Thursday. He added that Canadian universities are not on the decline, but are simply losing their lead over other countries. "I think we make too much of this," he said.


Coates says about one-third of the THE scoring system is based on reputation. The rest of the THE system evaluates schools based on their patents, innovations, published scholarly articles and number of companies developed on-campus.

B.C Trinity Western Law School Accreditation To Be Decided In Referendum

The governing members of the Law Society of British Columbia have voted in favour of holding a binding referendum to determine whether a Christian university's law school should be accredited.

The decision, in a 20 to 10 vote by the society's governors, came after a divisive and emotional hearing Friday over Trinity Western University's controversial policy against sex outside marriage between a man and a woman.

The mail-in referendum is to be held as soon as possible, with results to be released at the end of October.

The hearing followed months of debate on the issue that three other provincial legal governing bodies have weighed in on, with the matter expected to eventually land in the Supreme Court of Canada.

Law societies in Ontario and Nova Scotia have voted against accrediting law students from Trinity, and the university has launched legal challenges of those decisions.

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New Trends | Electric guitar overtakes violin in music lesson boom

The electric guitar has overtaken the violin in a list of most popular musical instruments for children to play, says a music exam board.

Some 13 per cent of five- to 17-year-olds play the electric guitar, compared with 12 per cent for the violin.

Keyboard is the most popular instrument, played by 30 per cent of the 1,726 children, questioned by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.

The figures suggest a music boom – but poorer children may be missing out.

Some 76 per cent of children aged five to 14 told the researchers they knew how to play an instrument compared with 41 per cent in 1999.

Compared with 1999 there has been rise in instrumental learning an across the board, with increasing numbers of children playing a wider variety of instruments and some children playing two or more, suggests the report.

Back in 1999, the recorder was the most popular instrument among this age group, with 19 per cent learning, just two per cent of children played the violin and one per cent, the electric guitar.

British Columbia Teacher Suspended For 'I'm Gay' Prank Now Working In Alberta

A shop teacher who was suspended in British Columbia for putting a sign that read "I'm gay" on the back of a student is teaching in Alberta.

Daniel Mark Ogloff is listed in the 2014-2015 handbook as a teacher at Bassano School. Bassano is a small town about 140 kilometres east of Calgary.

The principal of the school didn't respond to a request for comment.

But David Steele, superintendent of Grasslands School Division, confirmed to Vancouver radio station CKNW Radio on Thursday that Ogloff has been working in the district.

He said staff who hired Ogloff was unaware of the gay prank.

"We did reference checking, and the references did not divulge that information to us," the station quoted Steele as saying.