fledermaus

IS high school here really that broad? We have co-op students looking at a career in x-ray or the lab who are only doing 2 subjects per semester but still don't seem to know the basics of science which they would need. They are very polite and so on but don't seem to know much about anything.

Alan2005

Nice try, but too obvious I think.

blackcomb1

The British education system, universities and all, is superior full stop. You won't get a better education system than our British one. I am allowing my Son that choice or to study where he wants when that time comes. British nurses are better trained than Canadian one too, we know what being 'Professional' at work really is.

blackcomb1

I would say it is a case of... they have to study the legal system of that new country they are in, and that is a good reason why. I have a friend over here who's ex partner from UK was a solicitor and has to restart all over again from the bottom over here, and he has chosen to do that route - not sure I'd have done so, think I'd have gone back to UK if I'd been in his shoes. But sounds like his job is not secure or available there now so that is likely why.
Plus cost of living is much higher in the UK, especially the south where I am from, and London even more so, so they likely can't afford to study and live there either.

Almost Canadian

Except, of course, that to go England/Wales to Canada, usually means a number of exams, full Bar Course and then full Articles (some Provinces allow a slight reduction with the Articling requirement - Alberta doesn`t)

Going Canada to England/Wales requires one exam, no Bar Course and no Articling.

The cost of living in the south of England would also be the same for a new UK trained lawyer.

UK and South African trained lawyers "rule" the International Courts. It can`t all be because of their "posh" accents, some of it must be due to ability. I put it down to competition. There is a wide range of lawyers from around the world practising all over England and Wales. This is because the Law Society of England and Wales makes it relatively easy for lawyers from other jurisdictions to practice there.

It is not that easy for an Ontario lawyer to practise in Alberta for more than an minimal period of time. It is very difficult for a lawyer trained outside of Canada to qualify in Canada. So much so, that few have an interest in doing so. Canada is a virtual closed shop, therefore, the lawyers here do not have to raise their game and can cruise along. Clients are the ones that suffer.

To a very large extent though, comparisons are irrelevant. If one wishes to practice in England, train in England, if one wishes to practice in Ontario, train in Ontario, if one wishes to practice in New York, train in New York, etc., etc.

blackcomb1

Try a recognized accredited school or uni in that case.

Then yes is the answer, far better.

NessieOggy

A bit of a blanket statement IMO.....

During my Father's terminal illness, we dealt with many nurses in our area of BC and found them to be both professional and compassionate. I'm sure there are bad apples, as in any profession, however, that wasn't our experience.

Oggy

fledermaus

I don't understand your reply

MikeUK

I think Co-op's from the first year's of a NA uni are often catching up to there UK counterparts, hence why we tend to judge their lack of knowledge so harshly.
They tend to get better as they get to year three or four of their course, when their knowledege seems to fit what I'd expect of an undergrad.

Oakvillian

I don't think coherence is a strong point. I didn't understand either; idly checking back through previous posts there is more than a hint of the frothing loon.

dbd33

It seems to me that, if you take the bac in high school, it doesn't matter where you do it, the results are equal.

fledermaus

These are high school co-ops deciding on a career, but close to graduation. They don't have the level or breadth of knowledge I would expect from an A level student. If someone is contemplating a career in a science based hospital job then I would have expected them to have an inkling of atoms and molecules. That's O level stuff really isn't it?

I am impressed with the Canadian students confidence and ease of talking to patients, their social skills are better than I found UK students but academically nowhere near, and that's saying something.

triumphguy

I think Law Degrees have changed in the UK since I read Law there in the late 70's early 80s. The competition to get in was fierce. The courses were highly academic. At the time we also had to "dine" at one of the Inns of Court (not sure if you still have to do that) if you were on track to be a Barrister. Now it seems every ex Poly is teaching Law.

When I came to Canada with freshly minted degree in hand it was impossible to even get an interview at the U of Calgary even though they were using texts written by my former tutors (Anson's Law of Contract (Anthony Guest)for instance, or by Ian Kennedy) since I didn't have an undergrad degree. This despite the fact that most Yanks and Canucks I met at my College studying Law in the first year were 20year old third year students in their American/Canadian Colleges and were struggling to keep up with spotty eighteen year old Brit kids.

In 1983 to get my degree in Canada I would have had to take an undergrad degree, and then 2 years of an LLB.

In 1990(ish) I got a letter saying things had changed and all I needed was to pass the LSAT (which I did) challenge some exams and do the Bar Exams, but I'd moved on and said "bugger that!"

My much younger cousin took his much more practical Law Degree at what had formerly been Huddersfield Poly, did his articles and became a fully fledged lawyer with a lot less angst than we seemd to suffer a couple of decades earlier.

My intrductory first class, with the Dean of Law, Anthony Guest CBE, QC, had us looking to right and left ("Over the next three years you will learn 30,000 cases. Look to the right and left of you - both of these people will fail, one will fail in the first year. Will it be you?")

So it seems you had an easier time of it AC.

Almost Canadian

I am sure that is the case. I found the LL.B. academic, but the Legal Practice Course the practice of law in England were much more practical. I remember I had to learn over 1000 cases for my contract course.

In Canada, I found that the exams appeared to be a watered down version of what I had to write in England. All of them were open book which totally threw me. None of mine had been open book in England.

The Bar Course here was a joke. When I started it, we had to attend 3 face to face week long sessions at the end of which we had an Advocacy, an Interviewing and a negotiating practical to navigate (very similar to England, except the advocacy was done in a classroom rather than the mock court in England).

Then we progressed to the "difficult part". Our assignments. We were given a paper on noon on a Thursday. We had to complete the project and get the paper in by 4p.m. the following Thursday. We had 5 competency evaluations and 16 assignments. One a week for almost 6 months. One was not allowed to fail a competency evaluation (which were the same as an assignment except they were given a different name). The order went 3 assigments and a competency evaluation. But check this out: If one failed an assignment, one received notification of this by 5p.m. on a Monday. When informing the students of their pass/fail, the instructors would provide the students with feedback if they failed. The student was then allowed a "redo" which had to be handed back in by Thursday (together with the paper that was given out the previous Thursday). A supplemental had to be written at the end of the course if the student failed the redo.

Luckily, I never failed any but I was curious as to whether the students had to give in a similar project or the exact same one that they had failed. I asked someone that failed one and they told me it was the same project In other words, the student fails, is told precisely what they did wrong and asked to resubmit! Some failed these, how I don't know.

Halfway through the course they decided that too many were failing the assignments so, from that point forward, they became voluntary, were marked but the mark didn't matter and only the competency evaluations were pass/fail. So, in a stroke, the assessments went from 24 to 8, 3 of which were practicals.

In England we had exams all year and one was allowed to fail 2 papers and rewrite them (a totally different exam). If the student failed the rewrite they had to start the whole course again. One was only allowed to write the entire course a maximum of 3 times. Someone on my course was on their 3rd attempt and had previously failed a single exam on each course. £5,000 a course it was becoming a rather expensive exam.

Totally different systems and I am sure that students in each feel that what they have to do is extreme. The Canadians had it the easier version by a considerable margin.

I also found the marking in Canada to be all over the shop. In England, one would divide the marks available for each question by the time available and devote the appropriate amount of time to each question. On my Canadian Constitutional Paper, one of the questions was worth 25 marks (out of total of a 100 for the entire paper) and that question was split into 5 subquestions. The paper was a 3 hour paper. It began by stating the following:

State whether the following statements are TRUE or FALSE:

a) The Prime Minister of Canada is the Head of State of Canada.

What followed were 4 other similarly "difficult" questions and, had the paper been in England, should have taken me 45 mins to answer.

I had no idea whether I would get 5 marks if I simply answered "False" or whether any form of legal authority was required. In the end I answered "False, Queen Elizabeth II is the Canadian Head of State and her representative in Canada is the Governor General." I was given 5 marks. To this day, I don't know if my answer was 18 words to long and I suspect it was!

As I have said above, I have heard that getting into law school in Canada is the tough bit and that, once that goal is achieved, the rest of one's life is an easy street.

Alan2005

You didn't do the law exam at all did you. You got lost and ended up at a pub quiz.