Alberta's enrollment rate is increasing as more migrants move to the province to find jobs in its booming oil industry, however, it suffers from a high dropout rate among secondary students.

According to a Statistics Canada report released Monday, only 68 percent of the young Albertans in school year 2005-06 remained long enough to finish high school. The others were enticed to look for jobs in the oil industry, according to Patric Blouin, author of Summary Public School Indicator's for the Provinces and Territories.

Although Alberta has one of the most innovative public school systems in Canada, its high school graduation rate is slightly below the national average of 72 percent for the same academic year.

Kathy Telfer, an Alberta Education spokeswoman, said dropouts eventually return to get a high school diploma. She acknowledged, however, the province could do better to keep the students until they finish secondary school first before working.

The other alarming statistics for Canada is a 3 percent drop in number of school-age children, despite a total population growth of more than 2 million at the turn of the millennium.

Alberta's oil sand development has caused many changes in the Canadian economy, including the restructuring of the country's equalization formula. The formula serves as the basis in computing the amount of assistance a province will remit to and how much economic assistance it will receive from the federal government.