Artikkelit
01.10.2025
CANADA: Insights into the Canadian Education System -Based on the 2025 OECD Education at a Glance Report
The 2025 edition of OECD´s Education at a Glance report focuses particularly on tertiary education and its internationalization, analyzing attainment and completion rates, variations in labor market outcomes by field of study, and the skills of adults with tertiary qualifications. According to the recent report, in Canada the access to higher education is widespread, financial aid among students tends to be somewhat modest, and enrollment in short-cycle programs remains relatively high. Accessibility is clearly prioritized over advancement to higher-level degrees.
Background to Canada´s education system
In Canada, the federal government has a limited role in organizing education and it mainly provides funding for some educational arrangements. Canada does not have national education system nor federal department of education – Responsibility of education policy has been given to provinces and territories, meaning that they have to establish their own curriculums, provide funding and administrative frameworks for organizing education. Systems may vary a lot between distinct provinces and territories across Canada, but they all have free public education and mandatory attendance for children up to 18 years old. Canadian students perform in general very well in international assessments, particularly in reading, mathematics, and science, as shown by consistently high PISA scores.
The 2025 OECD Education at a Glance report provide a detailed overview of the Canadian education system, particularly of the higher education, its international context and the labor market outcomes. Canada has remained a popular destination for international students, but the future statistics will show changes as the current regulations have drastically impacted the numbers of international students in Canada. Between 2015 and 2022, overall education spending increased, but the cost per student fell by 7% due to a significant 17% growth in student enrolment. In general, Canada’s higher education system is marked by high tuition fees and relatively limited public financial aid (Figure). Fewer than 40% of students receive financial support, meaning the cost of education comes largely from students and their families. In particular, tuition fees for Master’s programs are more than 70% higher than those for Bachelor’s programs. Canada, along with Australia, also has the widest internal range in tuition fees across institutions.
Educational spending also varies widely between provinces and territories. For example, the amount spent per student in the Northwest Territories is more than double that in British Columbia. This reflects the decentralized nature of Canada’s education system, where the federal government plays only a minor role in funding schools.
Participation in higher education remains strong. Interestingly, Canada stands out among OECD countries as the only nation where fewer than 10% of adults cited family commitments as a barrier to participation in education or training. Still, the impact of family educational background on tertiary attainment remains significant, with young adults from less-educated families much less likely to complete a tertiary degree.
Regional variation: The OECD emphasizes that national data can obscure major regional differences in educational attainment. For example, in Canada among other regionally diverse OECD countries, the variation between regions with the highest and lowest shares of adults without an upper secondary education (i.e., high school) is 30 percentage points or more. These regional disparities in education tend to not show in national-level data.
On the other hand, Canada has relatively small performance gaps between students of different socio-economic backgrounds, and high level of access to quality education across different provinces. Short-cycle tertiary education (ISCED 5) plays a prominent role in Canada’s post-secondary system. Nearly one in four Canadians hold this type of credential, typically earned after completing secondary school. These programs are shorter and more vocationally oriented than bachelor’s or master’s degrees, and they account for a large portion of Canada’s high tertiary attainment rate.
While overall attainment is high, Canada’s higher education system is more concentrated at the lower end of the tertiary spectrum. A relatively small proportion of young adults continue to Master’s-level education. This contrasts with Finland, where a smaller share of young adults pursues tertiary qualifications, but those who do are more evenly split between lower and higher tertiary qualifications.
Labor market outcomes – In Canada, the wage gap between workers with and without upper secondary education, and between upper secondary and tertiary educations, is smaller than the OECD average. This indicates that the type of the education does not play a major role in salary development and that there is less income inequality in Canada. However, gender disparities in the labor market exist: While women outnumber men among tertiary-educated individuals, young women still experience lower employment rates and lower earnings compared to their male counterparts in the labor market.
In summary, Canada’s higher education system is characterized by high access, relatively low levels of financial support, and strong participation in short-cycle programs. While this model does not significantly inhibit enrolment, it appears more oriented toward broad access than toward progression to advanced degrees. Some have suggested a need for a more flexible and inclusive tertiary education options, including tailored programs, alternative admissions processes, and shorter, targeted offerings like microcredentials. The report also highlights a need for greater support for disadvantaged learners and schools. On the other hand, the wage gaps between education levels are smaller than the OECD average, so education type has less effect on salary and income inequality is lower. Gender inequality is, however, a problem when it comes to earnings.
Key figures:
• 69 % of younger adults (25-34) and over 60% of adults (25-64) have tertiary qualifications, which is among the higher rates of the OECD countries.
• Around 15% of Canadian young adults (25-34) hold a Master’s degree— aligning with the OECD average.
• Nearly 25% of Canadians hold a short-cycle tertiary qualification (ISCED 5).
• Participation in higher education is high even though less than 40% of Canadian students receive financial support.
• The higher education per student spending decreased by 7% (2015–2022) as spending did not keep up with the growing enrollment numbers (+ 17%)
• A smaller proportion of first-time tertiary entrants in Canada enroll in bachelor's-level programs (53%) compared to the OECD average (78%), highlighting the popularity of short-cycle tertiary qualification (ISCED 5)
• Among native-born adults, 59% hold a tertiary degree; among foreign-born adults, the rate is 73%.
• The share of internationally mobile students in Canada rose from 10% to 19% between 2013 and 2022.
• In some regions of Canada, up to 30 percentage points separate the areas with the highest and lowest shares of adults without a high school diploma.
Aino Antinluoma, Edufi Trainee, Los Angeles
Sari Tojkander, Counsellor for Science and Higher Education, Los Angeles
Figure: Total Expenditure on Tertiary Institutions as a Percentage of GDP, from selected OECD Countries (2005-2022). The public expenditure of Canada a bit below the OECD average, but combined with private expenditure, it is still significantly above the OECD average. After 2022, the private expenditure has, however, gone down but this is not yet shown in the statistics. From: https://higheredstrategy.com/education-at-a-glance-2025-part-1/
Sources:
OECD Education at a Glance report and Education at a Glance background memo
https://static.poder360.com.br/2025/09/Education-at-a-Glance-2025.pdf
https://higheredstrategy.com/education-at-a-glance-2025-part-1/
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/education-at-a-glance-2025_1a3543e2-en/canada_a2529d00-en.html