Barrier 4: Education Gaps

What are the statistics for education gaps in Canada?

Canadians have always put high importance on education. All resumes include an education section and employers take this seriously. Education gaps prove to be large barriers for youth when it comes to employment and higher education.

According to a Statistics Canada census done in 2016, the high school drop out rate for the country was 14% and jumped as high as 50% in lower income communities. The unemployment rate for youth without a high school diploma is higher than the national average.

One of the factors that can cause a student to drop out of high school is a history of struggling academically. This struggle can be cause by learning disabilities or educational gaps that occurred earlier in a child’s education.

Canadian universities and colleges almost always require certain high school courses as prerequisites for acceptance into their programs. Canadian high schools are designed to offer various levels of courses, depending on the student’s future educational goals. For example, a high school student can either take university, college, or remedial level math. The level of math they take is affected by their previous grades and directly affects the post-secondary programs they can get accepted to.

How does this affect youth employment?

There are very few jobs in Canada that will hire youth who do not have, or are not currently working on, a high school diploma. Students who are struggling in their classes, or who have fallen behind, are less likely to finish high school than their peers. Without a diploma, their employment options are fairly limited.

When it comes to post-secondary education, gaps introduce a barrier here as well. Even when a student completes high school, if they didn’t complete the right high school courses, they won’t be able to go into the programs they want to. Educational gaps then become a huge barrier to youth pursuing higher education and specialized career paths.

How do we intend to address this barrier?

Youth will be separated into groups according to their educational needs – middle school, high school, and university. We will be running small tutoring sessions online that are focused on math and science. These programs are aimed at Canadian youth who grew up here and fell behind, as well as youth who are new to Canada and transferred from a different educational system.

Registration is now open for these tutoring sessions, click here to sign up!

One of the factors that can cause a student to drop out of high school is a history of struggling academically. This struggle can be cause by learning disabilities or educational gaps that occurred earlier in a child’s education.