the CanadaVisa Team - 23 July, 2015
This year, the Toronto public school board's top three students are foreign-born. Likewise, the top spot in the Peel District School board is shared by four immigrant students. Jim Cummins of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education is not surprised that despite the additional challenges of starting a new life in Canada, some immigrant students are outperforming their Canadian-born peers.
"Because of Canada's immigration policy, we are bringing in immigrants with higher education levels than the Canadian-born population. [The children of these immigrants] are highly motivated, very bright kids who come in and, especially in science and math, are often farther ahead than the school they are entering."
As the school year gets underway in Canada, the Toronto District School Board, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and several settlement agencies have teamed up to help newly arrived immigrant youth get a head start as they prepare to enter high school. The Newcomer Orientation Week is a pilot program that welcomed 250 students to eight schools in Toronto, Peel, and Hamilton. These students began school a week earlier than the rest of their classmates. By attending this one-week orientation, newcomers had the chance to learn about their new education system, find out about resources in their school and community, and meet new friends who are also newcomers to Canada.
Students were matched up with peer leaders - immigrant volunteers who were once in the same situation as these new students. “By matching newcomers with their peers, it really helps give them an insider's experience, because we can sympathize and empathize,” explains one peer leader.
Annually, over 27,000 youth and adolescents settle in Ontario with their immigrant parents – half of them are high-school aged.
