Bridging the gap between “New” and native Canadians - Toronto,

The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) governs over 550 schools. In some of these schools, the proportion of "new Canadians" is as high as 80 to 95 per cent. For half of them neither English nor French is their native language. TDSB aims to ensure that all students reflecting that diversity, have equitable opportunities to be successful in school and that systematic barriers to their achievements are identified and removed. Therefore TDSB provides for low-achieving students individual support in the classroom and access to language learning in the students’ native language. TDSB supports also efforts to involve parents, neighbourhoods and ethnic communities. According to the data from the Programme for international Student Assessment (PISA) the TDSB has successfully closed the average achievement gap between second generation students of migrant origin and their Canadian peers.