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Live and Let Live. Together we can make a difference.

DP JAIN, CPA, CGA, CPA (US), CA(I), LL.B.(I)
416-305-0080
(Loans, Mortgage, Tax, Accounting, Investments)

I agree with Chandresh.... That he is able to see the good points in the Canadian education system inspite of his frustration at not being able to land a suitable job in his field,only goes to show how objective and unbiased he is.

What kids get here is an education - an all-rounded personality, besides studies, they get the opportunity to excel in sports, music etc. How many kids in India get such an opportunity? This is not to belittle the Indian edcuation system - no doubt kids over there excel in Math, no wonder India produces so many top notch engineers and scientists. As to those who talk of schools like Cathedral or Campion, these kids are for the elite rich who live in Cuff Parade or Malabar Hill, how many average Indian parents are able to send their kids to such schools?

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JM

Hi DP

Rest assured I will not take anything personally - but this is one topic which is close to my heart and have been wanting to discuss this for sometime. You might recall that in last CD meeting I had brought my children along, and my son had come prepared to address the audience there and speak about education system in Canada. He had not prepared anything in advance - just that very morning I had requested him to speak about it - whatever his thoughts were, and give the audience a first hand experience, direct form the horse's mounth.

My son was a gifted student in Singapore too - where the standard of academic studies in school is much higher than India and infact the streaming in done in grade 5-6 rather than like grade 9 in India. There is too much pressure in Singapore's primary education and grade 6 exam is like the most important exam for not only the child but the parents too - no way compared to India and so you can imagine what background he and we have come from.

And when I discuss with him, he finds education in schools here much better because according to him, it teaches not theory alone but how things are practically done in life. At the same time, the schooling helps develop a child what he or she is good at. My daughter, who came here in grade 5, had never been good in academic studies back home - and therefore she had developed not only severe inferiority complex (when she used to see awards and certificates and medals of her brother), but was never able to develop her other talents (like dancing, volunteering, public speaking, and sharp wittedness etc) because in Indian kind of education, such opportunities are only provided to students who get good grades in normal academic subjects - they become the teachers favourites.

After coming here, she has developed into such a wonderful child and she is now bubbling with confidence. She is considered the best student in her whole grade, she has got the valedictorian award (which by the way is considered much better than getting highest marks in acedemic subjects - which my son had got in grade 8!), she has worked with a guy who has been nominated by Canada three times for a nobel prize, a TV documentary has been prepared (and broadcasted on TV three times) on her passion for helping others, etc. etc.

And the best part is - she now likes her studies much more than ever and scores good grades, because the school teachers make her feel comfortable and explain things to her not as a chapter to be memorized, but the theory to be understood in the manner she can understand best. I have no qualms in admitting that today in grade 8 she might be weaker in mental mathematics than what I was, but she has much more knowledge about various sciences, history and georgraphy than I ever did when I was her age. She has and easily can deliver a self prepared speech to 250 strong audience with such confidence which my son and wife (both toppers of their classes in their times) could never do.

Three years ago, I had attended an open house session of a secondary school. There I had questioned their math teacher as to why the level of math is so low in Canada as compared to Asian countries. I like his reply and am fully convinced with his thought. He said in any nation (or an organisation), the policy makers and top administration is never more than 5 % of the total population, and those who execute such policies and decions by understanding the basics and giving suggestions are not more than 15 to 20%. The rest 75 to 80% of the population of the country or organisation only help in execute those policies and decisions without having to apply their minds, except for producing the work in the manner it should be done. If that be the case, why should those 75 to 80% be subjected to the torture of doing mental mathematics when practically all of them are going to use calcutors in their daily lives, or of learning higher calculas which they will NEVER need in their working lives, or understanding the Binomial theoram which they will never need to put in practice. And therefore, these things are taught in university level, where it is meant for students who want to be in that top 25% of the nation or organisation. It is their need and is fulfilled in university. That is why you will find a HUGE difference in education level between school and university (I will not argue if that is right or not)

(By the way - can anyone explain to me the practical aspect of learning how to solve a quadratic equation - something that we used to learn in grade 5-6 in India? Can you tell me how that knowledge helps an average Joe in our working lives?)

Again I could write a lot of other things about the system here - but a very long post will become extremely boring.

Chandresh

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Chandresh

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