As you may already know, life in Canada provides many advantages, including universal health care and reduced safety concerns. For this reason, Canada had to implement a program that would prevent the country from being overwhelmed by immigrants. Having an influx of too many new people would simply be too great a strain on the current system and could cause it to collapse.

Canada does want immigrants to come to their country. Otherwise, they wouldn't have lowered the required Pass-Mark score from 75 to 67. However, they do want to ensure that all new immigrants will be able to fit into their culture, will be able to support themselves and their families, and will make a positive contribution to the community into which they move.

The Pass-Mark system is a method of evaluating individuals who apply to become permanent Canadian residents based on those standards.

Elements of the Pass-Mark System

The Pass-Mark System evaluates applicants in six areas:

Education
Language ability
Work experience
Age
Arranged employment in Canada
Adaptability

Each of these areas can earn you a specific number of points based on your responses.

The maximum number of points available for each area is listed below:

Education - 25 points
Language - 24 points
Work experience - 21 points
Age - 10 points
Arranged employment in Canada - 10 points
Adaptability - 10 points

In my next article, we'll talk a little about what each of the focus of each of these different areas.