Canada needs to improve the quality of post-secondary education in order to maintain enough high-skilled workers as the population ages, according to the June survey from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The report suggested that education in Canada be made more flexible to promote lifelong learning, by improving credit transfer between different educational institutions for example.
The report pointed out that Canada leads all other OECD countries with the highest proportion of adults aged 25-64 that have completed some sort of post-secondary education.
However it noted that although Canada ranked the highest of all OECD countries for students who have received a college education, Canada’s ranked 15th for adults aged 25-34 with a university education which could be a warning of “potential future competitiveness losses.”
The report also noted Canadian universities “make strong contributions to research, but teaching relies increasingly on large class sizes and sessional lecturers.” The report suggested that universities be differentiated as institutions that engage in research and those that focus primarily on teaching.
The report also recommended that Canada seek to attract more foreign students and make it easier for them to work and stay in Canada after they graduate.
