Canada in brief: Jan. 27, 2010
The struggles of first-generation students addressed in report
A recent study done by Shaljan Areepattamannil, a doctoral candidate at Queen’s University, has found that first-generation immigrant children are performing below average in mathematics and science and appear to be struggling in Canada’s education system.
The study examined the results of 2,636 13-year-old first-generation immigrant students who took part in the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).
Math and science results fell far below the average score of 500. Areepattamannil concedes that more research needs to be done with more nation-wide data, but the findings should raise concerns as it contradicts previous studies on the subject.
–Compiled by Eric Merkley
Connecting economics and the environment: lecture
York University professor in environmental studies and author of Managing without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster Peter Victor delivered a lecture on Monday at Wilfrid Laurier University. Victor presented the significance between business and the environment.
Victor is the founding president of the Canadian Society of Ecological Economics and is currently a member of the Board of the David Suzuki Foundation.
Victor explained that in his perspective “economic growth [in Canada] has become the over-arching economic policy objective.”
He believes that “growth can not last forever”, meaning that inevitably economic growth will have to seize, given depleting natural resources numbers.
–Arshad Desai