As noted throughout the paper, Canada’s federal arrangements delegate responsibility
for education and higher education to the provinces, while the Government of Canada
plays a significant role in research and development, and has initiated a number of major
funding programs since 2000. Assessing the overall success of provincial policies
related to education in STEM fields is challenging, in large part because the provinces
have different curricula, goals, and policy arrangements. Generally speaking, Canada’s
schools are regarded as performing quite well, including in STEM fields. While there are
important variations in performance by province, Canadian students have performed
quite well on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exams. Canadian
scores on these examinations are well above the OECD average, and Canada ranks in
the top ten in both math and science results.
In terms of tertiary education, Canada has high participation rates and high levels of
degree attainment compared to other OECD peers. Maintaining or increasing levels of
access to tertiary education is a key policy issue in all provinces. While there have been
examples of provincial policies that were explicitly designed to expand enrolment in
STEM related areas, such as the Access to Opportunities Program in Ontario in the late
1990s, the more common approach has been to generally support the overall expansion
of participation rates and leave the decision on the appropriate balance of enrolment by
program in the hands of the institutions. The share of students in non-university (type B)
47
programs is higher than in many other OECD nations. While overall participation rates
are high, there is an increased concern about addressing the problems associated with
those groups that are being left behind. While participation rates of Canada’s aboriginal
peoples are increasing, they continue to be very low compared to the population as a
whole, in large part reflecting low levels of secondary school completion. There continue
to be concerns with gender balance in some STEM fields, especially in specific
specializations within engineering.
Several provinces have taken steps over the last decade to support the expansion of
graduate level education, including the expansion of doctoral programs. Support for
expansion has generally been across all fields of study, and so the expansion of
graduate students in STEM fields is in part simply a function of a broader wave of
support for overall expansion, and in part influenced by the increasing availability of
research funding and graduate student financial support under federal government
initiatives.
The available evidence suggests that graduates are successfully transitioning into the
labour market. Generally speaking, unemployment rates for graduates of STEM fields
are low or comparable with other program areas.
While the provincial governments have strongly supported increasing access to tertiary
education, the federal government has been making major investments in Canada’s
innovation strategy, especially in supporting the development of research talent,
research infrastructure, and research activity. STEM fields, as well as many areas within
health research, have been major beneficiaries of these initiatives, though it is important
to note that most of these initiatives support research across the range of research fields
(STEM and non-STEM) with a greater emphasis on science and technology.
One of the most high-profile of these initiatives is the Canada Research Chairs Program.
While there were some initial concerns with gender balance of appointed chairs, the
overall evaluations of the program have been very positive and the CRCP has become
the flagship example of federal government investment in research talent. The program
was designed to both retain top Canadian talent and attract leading scholars, and
linkages between the CRCP and the Canada Foundation for Innovation allowed
institutions to provide top researchers with start-up infrastructure support that simply
could not be financed by the CRCP alone. The Canada Excellence Research Chairs
Program, designed to attract leading international researchers and teams through
awards of $10 million over seven years, was announced in 2008 and the first chairs were
awarded in 2011. While this new, highly competitive program has been successful in
attracting a small number of top researchers in selected areas, it is too early to assess
the overall impact of this initiative.
Canada’s overall science and technology strategy appears to be working. The
government has made major investments in direct support for research, research
infrastructure and human resources, and these investments have been very well
received by the higher education sector. These initiatives have balanced curiosity-driven
research supported by the granting council competitions, with more focused, targeted
support in strategic areas. It has balanced support for talent (through the CRC program
and expanded scholarship programs) with infrastructure (through CFI).
The continuing concern, repeated by reviews of science and technology policy for the
last four decades, is the low level of private-sector (business enterprise) investment in
research and development compared with many other developed nations. This was a
key theme in the recent OECD Economic Review of Canada (2012c), and while the