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September 23, 2009 Ottawa—A new report commissioned by the Canadian Council on Learning and Citizenship and Immigration Canada found wide variations in the academic performance and educational paths of students from different immigrant groups living in different parts of Canada.
For example, researchers found that Vietnamese–speaking students do very well in Montreal schools yet less well in schools in Vancouver and Toronto, and that Chinese–speaking students in all three cities performed significantly better than most other English-as-a-second-language (ESL) and French-as-a-second-language (FSL) students.
The report, Educational Pathways and Academic Performance of Youth of Immigrant Origin: Comparing Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, analysed provincial and school-board data banks for information about thousands of students whose mother tongue at home was neither French nor English (i.e., non-French speakers in Montreal and non-English speakers in Toronto and Vancouver).
“This groundbreaking look into Canada’s growing immigrant-student population shows that educators and school boards should be careful to not view all ESL/FSL students as a uniform whole,” says Marie McAndrew, project coordinator at the Université de Montréal.
“It is clear from this that one size does not fit all when it comes to developing services aimed at supporting immigrant students’ integration in our schools and that these are likely to be most effective when they are tailored to specific groups.”
The report, along with its seven major findings and four policy implications, is available on the CCL website.
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The Canadian Council on Learning is an independent, not-for-profit corporation funded through an agreement with Human Resources and Social Development Canada. Its mandate is to promote and support evidence-based decisions about learning throughout all stages of life, from early childhood through to the senior years.
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