The make-up of the typical Canadian school has changed dramatically since the 1950s, with 10 percent of K-12 students now foreign-born, and a majority of immigrant students belonging to a visible minority group

A new story in the Globe and Mail, Canada’s largest national newspaper, explores the advantage Canada has over other high income democracies in attracting highly educated emigrants.

The article notes that 10 percent of K-12 students in Canada are foreign-born, with the prevalence increasing to over 25 percent in major metropolitan centres like Vancouver and Toronto.

It lauds the success of these foreign born students, who despite facing the challenges of integrating into a new country, outperform their native born peers academically.

This is in contrast to other countries, including the US and UK, where immigrant students perform more poorly academically than their native-born peers, and this, the article contends, is often the reason why highly educated parents choose to immigrate to Canada.

The article has generated tremendous interest among the Globe’s readership, with 600 comments submitted at the time of this writing.