English Research Paper: Academic and Personal Growth in Canada

This English research paper examines the academic and personal benefits of international study, specifically focusing on the Canadian education system. The paper begins by highlighting Canada's well-developed education system, its high literacy rates, and the factors that attract international students. It then compares the Canadian education system with those of other nations, emphasizing Canada's high investment in education and its affordability for international students. The research delves into the relationship between personality traits and academic performance, citing the Five Factors Model and recent studies. Finally, the paper explores the implications of studying abroad, including intercultural interaction, individualism, language development, and career opportunities. The paper concludes by emphasizing how the Canadian education system supports both academic and personal growth for international students, making it a worthwhile destination for higher education.

Running head: ENGLISH RESEARCH PAPER
English research paper
Name of the student
Name of the University
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Education is one of the essential parts of everyone’s life that helps the person to
enlighten himself. It not only aids to grow the academic knowledge, moreover, makes the
person a good human being. Generally, it is desired by every student to pursue their higher
studies from world’s best colleges or universities and hence, they go to the different parts of
the world to get proper education. Studying abroad is not only fulfilling academically and
culturally, but also aids to foster the personal growth (Lantis & DuPlaga, 2015). It enhances
the intercultural communities among different students and thus rows the seed of harmony in
the mind of a student. Canada being one of the developed countries has a well-established
education system that attracts many students from abroad every year (Altbach, 2015). The
number of students coming to Canada for higher studies, are increasing rapidly due to various
reasons, however, one of the important questions related to this topic is still persistent that,
how international study in countries like Canada is worthwhile to students, academically and
personally. In this essay, a research will be done based on this question and it will be
analysed further to find out how students academically and personally benefited from
studying abroad.
Education system in Canada – Canada has a well-developed education system that
makes it one of the countries that has highest literacy rate in the world. According to the
statistics, among every 10 Canadian adults, 6 are literate and 25 among 64 people have post-
secondary education, making it one of the countries that has highest literacy rate in the world
(Belley, Frenette & Lochner, 2014). The country has a well-established education ministry
that discuss the matters connected with the education minutely and Council of Ministers of
Education take care the legislation regarding the education. There are many factors in
education system of Canada, which influence students to visit this place and to learn over
there. These factors are - opportunities to study and learn in a different way, good career
opportunities, personal development, gathering knowledge about different cultures and

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people, opportunity to travel in a new place and so on (Beine, Noël & Ragot, 2014). With the
vast scope of higher studies, Canada attracts many students from abroad.
Figure 1: Adult literacy rate
Source: (van der Heide et al., 2013)
International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) suggests that Canada is one of the
developed nations that rank fourth in terms of adult literacy rate in the world as depicted by
the figure 1 (van der Heide et al., 2013). Moreover, the above figure demonstrate that Canada
is far developed in the case of education, compared to developed countries like US, Australia,
Germany and others.
Coming to the education structure of Canada it can be seen that there are more than
10,000 graduate and undergraduate programs available in the universities of Canada
(Paulsen, 2014). For the domestic students, Canadian Universities offer Bachelor’s degree,
Master’s degree and the Doctoral degrees. When it comes to international students, then the
Canadian universities offer certificate and diploma programs. Average yearly enrolment of
Canadian colleges varies from 2,000 to 62,000 students making it one of the countries that
has highest amount of post secondary literacy rate (Li & Jones, 2015).

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Figure 2: Primary education enrolment rate by gender
Source: ("Canada, UNESCO UIS", 2017)
Figure 2 shows that primary education enrolment rate is more than 90% and the figure
is consistent since 2006, making Canada to have highest literacy rate ("Canada, UNESCO
UIS", 2017). Gender discrimination in education is absent in Canada that gives the country a
chance to have balanced growth. Moreover, the above figure suggests that Canadian parents
prefer to send their children to the school since their childhood. Government programs
encourage the parents to send their children to the school and regional government prefer to
put up their own schooling system, which is same throughout the territories of Canada.
Canada has more than 36 universities among which 8 universities are private institutes
and remaining is government funded that provides health, psychological, career supports
(Hawkins, Langford & Saunders, 2015). These factors drive both the domestic and
international students to visit Canadian universities.
Difference of education system in Canada with other nations – Canada is one of
the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries that have a
well-mannered and properly structured education system. The country not only ranks high in
the Education at a Glance report from OECD but also ranks fourth in terms of literacy rate in
the world (van der Heide et al., 2013). According to the OECD survey, the country expenses
9,130 US$ annually on the primary education and it is quiet high than the OECD average,

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which shows how much importance the country put in education (Holter, 2015). When it
comes to total government expenditure of the Canadian government on education, then it is
accounted for almost 12.04% of the total GDP of the country, which is also high compared to
OECD average of 11.3% making Canada one of the country that have good amount of literate
people (Lammam et al., 2016). Moreover, 55% of Canadian students go for post-secondary
education that enables the country to have more than 90% of employment (Adamuti-Trache,
2016). Well, these figures certainly shows that education is one of the important part of life of
Canadian people and it acts as the multiplying factor for attracting more and more foreign
students to the Canadian universities annually.
Figure 3: inflow of students in Canadian universities
Source: ("Education. Canada at a Glance 2016", 2017)
Inflow of students in Canadian universities is depicted by the figure 3 which entails
the number of enrolment of students in higher studies in Canadian universities is much higher
than the domestic students. The main reason behind this trend can be justified by the well
governance of the education system by both the universities as well as the government of
Canada. Besides this, ease of having student visa is another reason that leads the students to

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visit Canadian universities for the better scope of learning and fostering his personality
("Education. Canada at a Glance 2016", 2017).
.
Figure 4: Tuition fees for Canadian university students
Source: ("Education. Canada at a Glance 2016", 2017)
According to the figure 4, tuition fees for various renowned Canadian universities
have not changed over the past year making the country one of the affordable place for
international students ("Education. Canada at a Glance 2016", 2017).

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Figure 5: Comparison of college tuition fees at bachelor level in 2015-2016
Source: ("Forbes Statista", 2017)
Canada expends high amount of its national income on the education and making it easier for
the students to carry on their studies. The average tuition fees in Canadian colleges in 2015 to
2016 according to the Forbes were only $4,939 making it one of the cheapest countries
around the world for higher studies ("Forbes Statista", 2017). According to the figure 5,
Canada stands fourth in the comparison list of tuition fees for the college students in the year
2015 to 2016. This is a driving force that attracts more international students in Canadian
universities compared to other universities of developed nations like UK, US, Germany and
Australia (Alba & Foner, 2014).
How academic and personality is related – There is a common belief that
personality has a great amount of impact on the academic career of a student. As discussed by
the Five Factors Model (FFM) of personality, students differ in terms of personal values and
they receive information and process it differently (Poropat, 2014). Owing to difference in
personal traits, level of understanding for students varies. FFM argues that Extroversion,
Agreeableness, Openness, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism are the five factors that affect

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the personality of a person and it alters the academic performance of the student too (Vedel &
Poropat, 2017).
Figure 6: regression between personality and academic performance
Source: (Csikszentmihalyi & Wong, 2014)
Recent researches have proved the relationship between the academic performance
and personality statistically. A sample survey on the 40 Canadian University students was
conduct back in 2006 to find the relationship and as the figure 6 depicts, there is a correlation
between the two factors. The above figure depicts that Extraversion and Conscientiousness
has weak relationship with the academic performance, whereas the Openness genuinely
affects the academic performance of a student. The research concludes that Neuroticism and
openness are the two most important factors that alter the performance of a student. If the
university can provide proper guidelines, then it will be helpful for the student to achieve
better academic grades (Csikszentmihalyi & Wong, 2014)
.

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Figure 7: Five-Factor Model of personality
Source: (Piedmont, 2014)
Coming to the present scenario of Canadian education culture, one can easily said that
it is well established and properly maintained system that helps the universities of this
country to attract more than 2,00,000 international students (Perkins & Neumayer, 2014).
Education system of Canadian university helps the students to become gentle, good-natured,
flexible and co-operative maintaining all the social affiliations. Besides this the Canadian
universities helps their students to become innovative and enhance their imagination power
that makes them successful in academic (Kreber & Mhina, 2013). With proper guidance and
instructions from the universities in Canada, international students foster their strong
personality, which has a continuous effect on the academic as well as the social career.
Implication of studying abroad – Apart from academic support from the Canadian
Universities, health, psychological, career supports are the main reason that attracts more
foreign students towards the Canadian universities. These factors are positively related with
the personal growth of the students and these factors provide a far-reaching effect on the

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students to flourish socially as well as academically (Boucher et al., 2014). Below is some of
the implication of studying abroad, especially in countries like Canada where a well-
established education system present.
Interaction with new culture – Intercultural communication is one of the things that
help a person to proper in life both economically and socially (Samovar et al., 2014).
Compared to studying in home Universities, when it comes to studying abroad, chances of
interacting with new culture is wide and it helps the students to have a strong personality.
Growth of individualism – In order to spend a smooth growth of life, having
individualism is essential. It will not only make a person able to have individualistic ideas but
also turn him into such a personality who cannot be dominated easily. When a student going
abroad, especially in countries like Canada for higher studies, then the chances of becoming a
student with independent thought and self-reliance is much higher. Canada being a safe
country and global hub for international tourists provides a large amount of scope to the
students to explore their traits (Gill, 2017). It helps the students to grow a good personality
with strong academic background that helps them to proposer in future life.
Development of language skills – According to statistics, there are more than 200,000
international students who are studying in Canadian universities (Perkins & Neumayer,
2014). Most of them have come from the countries like China, India and Brazil, which
constitutes almost 30% of total world population (Choudaha, Chang & Kono, 2014). With
students coming from different region of the world, it will be easy for the Canadian university
students to learn new languages, which will help them to prosper in life.
Better career opportunities – Getting a good job with a handsome salary is one of the
main criteria that leads students to study abroad. Canada being a developed country, boasts
almost 90% of employment rate and as an accelerator factor, it attracts more international
students than any other country (Lu, 2015). It is assumed that Canadian universities has more

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than 5,000 collaboration agreements globally that enables the international students graduated
from the Canadian universities to get employed within 6 months of course completion
(Wong, 2017).
These are the various implication of learning abroad. Achieving these benefits while
studying in home universities is not possible owing to lack of proper education plan,
exposure and education system. Even developed countries like US, Germany, UK fails to
provide as much benefits as Canadian universities provide making it one of the best
destination for international students. Besides this, features of Canadian universities are not
only meant to attract more foreign students but also to provide each of them a better future,
which is a major reason that studying abroad worthwhile to students, academically and
personally (Soria & Troisi, 2014).
Knowledge is achievable by many different ways and one of the best ways is studying
abroad. It not only helps the student to have an experience of lifetime but also aids to interact
with different cultures. From the above analysis, it can clearly be seen that education system
has huge impact on the personal growth and it helps to achieve higher level of social bonding
irrespective of cast, creed and religion. Studying abroad may be fearsome experience for
some students at beginning, because they are going out of their comfort zone, however the
ups and downs during the learning period helps the student to become a good human being.
The analysis done above showcase that Canada being a developed nation enrols many foreign
students annually in their colleges and universities for higher studies. The ever-rising figure
of foreign students studying abroad showcases that, well-established education system and
various facilities given by the Canadian colleges and universities, along with comparatively
lower tuition fees, attracts the students from foreign countries towards the Canadian
educational institutions for higher studies. Thus studying abroad, especially in the countries

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like Canada, where well established education system is present is worthwhile to students,
academically and personally.

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