Increased number of Canadian immigrants failing citizenship test

Canada, 30th November: A relatively higher number of immigrants in Canada are failing to pass Canada citizenship test after several changes in the citizenship test introduced by the Canadian government earlier this year.

As per the official data, failure rates for newcomers in Canada appearing for written citizenship tests have gone up by 30 percent after the government introduced tougher rules in March this year. Prior to making changes in the Canada citizenship test, the government also introduced ‘Discover Canada’, a new guide for immigrants to study.

Such changes leading to high failure rates among immigrants in Canada citizenship test are likely to result in immigrants accepting the Canadian government’s offer of undergoing French and English language training.

Speaking about the changes brought in the new Canada citizenship tests, Canada immigration minister Jason Kenney said that a few regulations were mandatory keeping in view widespread cheating incidents in the tests and to make the test more meaningful.

Giving details about the old citizenship test, Minister Kenney said that the reason why the old Canada citizenship test was cleared by around 97 percent of the immigrants was that the five standard answer sets were available to them in the market resulting in widespread cheating.

However, the questions in the new Canada citizenship tests have been scrambled so that the immigrants make efforts to know about the values, history, and the institutions of their new country, asserted Kenney.

Such changes leading to high failure rates among immigrants in Canada citizenship test are likely to result in immigrants accepting the Canadian government’s offer of undergoing French and English language training.

Earlier, immigrants with little knowledge of French or English were getting high scores in the Canada citizenship test, only due to the crooked consultants offering test question-answers on sale. But now, the test questions have been rotated thus making it impossible for immigrants to memorize the answers.

Hence, no one can clear the citizenship test without preparing it seriously, Kenney clarified.

The Canada immigration department CIC (Citizenship and immigration Canada) has introduced a voucher system for free language classes to immigrants in Canada. Under this project, around 2,000 new immigrants received vouchers to attend free language classes at their chosen center. These immigrants were chosen randomly from Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia.

The voucher system is likely to encourage more immigrants to enroll themselves in free language training classes resulting in their successful integration in Canada, quipped Kenney.