Canada’s Challenge with Math
Today’s pop-culture sends conflicting messages to our children. Celebrity and athletic ability are glorified more than success in school. Students often realize far too late that they do not have the grades or knowledge required to enter university and succeed. Meanwhile, Canadian university admission criteria have risen and have become more competitive than ever before.
Declining math skills
The math skills of students entering Canadian universities have declined sharply in recent years, with many students unable to do basic arithmetic. Students’ deficiency in math is affecting their course choices and educational paths. For example, many psychology students decide to leave the field because they’re put off by the requirement to take a statistics course. Students sometimes do not realize that university courses are at a much higher level of complexity than high school math.
Math is not just math.
Math is a disciplined, organized way of thinking. Mastering the language of logic helps to develop ability to reason, to detect patterns and to make informed guesses. More and more jobs require familiarity with probability, statistics and geometry.
Increasing Awareness
With recent increase in Canada-wide concern about student’s declining math knowledge this topic is becoming a focus of discussion again. Experts are looking at quality and quantity of math instruction in schools. The science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs are being promoted again. A significant change is under way led by the tidal way of parents demanding better math education for their children.
Our goal at Math For Excellence is to give our students the knowledge they need to achieve their best in math and prepare for university. The students in this program build a solid foundation in math and develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. Our systematic approach is based on the best practices from European math schools and adapted to BC students’ needs.
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Further Information:
What to do about Canada’s Declining Math Scores (CD Howe, 2015)
Ontario Math system is broken (Globe and Mail, 2016)
Only 50% of Ontario’s grade 6 students meet province’s math standard (CBC, 2016)
Alberta grade 4 math tests (CBC, 2017)