Friday, November 09, 2007

Sir John A. Who?

We Canadians regularly used to sneer at reports of Americans' lack of historical and geographical knowledge, but it turns out that we are not much better ourselves.
A Dominion Institute report suggest that less than half of our 18-to-24 year olds know who Canada's first Prime Minister was (even with multiple choice options) and only one in four know the year of Confederation (that one really surprised me).
Even more worrying, the results have worsened considerably over the last ten years.
Try the quiz yourself. As someone who has studied for the Canadian citizenship test (even if not that recently), I didn't find it that hard, although I will admit to getting a couple wrong.
I think this has much more to say about the general standard of education in Canada than about our patriotism.

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