New program helps teens adjust from jail to school
Saturday, August 11th, 2012
31 July 2012
… they have been immersed in a culture of custody and they can’t leave it behind without support… While these teens have aptitude, they can be “functionally illiterate and they need wraparound services from people who speak their language… Redemption Reintegration Services… provides them with advice on housing, jobs, clothing and even has a barbershop in the office for students who can’t afford a haircut when they get out of jail… “once these kids feel they don’t belong, that’s when it starts.”
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology, youth
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Closing the ‘achievement gap’ for Toronto’s aboriginal students
Monday, June 18th, 2012
Jun 16 2012
Teachers don’t know much about aboriginal history and culture and admit they haven’t been taught how to connect with students who can be shy or suspicious. Yet a provincial pilot project discovered that when aboriginal children do get extra attention and encouragement, and lesson plans that reflect their lives, they become engaged… After two years, the results were so promising that the board will continue to bankroll the push even though provincial funding has ended.
Tags: Indigenous, multiculturalism, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | 2 Comments »
Larger classrooms among sweeping changes suggested to education
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
Feb.15, 2012
The economist advising Queen’s Park on how to wipe out the deficit suggests sweeping changes to the sector on which Premier Dalton McGuinty has staked his reputation, arguing the province has hiked per-pupil spending by 56 per cent in the past 10 years, while enrolment has plunged… He also suggests post-secondary spending grow by no more than 1.5 per cent until 2017.
Tags: budget, disabilities, economy, tax, youth
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Long-promised Ontario Online Institute still far from launch
Monday, January 30th, 2012
Jan 29 2012
The Ontario Online Institute was announced by the McGuinty government in the 2010 Speech from the Throne and cited again in a speech by MPP John Milloy last May… MPP Glen Murray, the new minister of training, colleges and universities, has mused publicly that one of the government’s promised three new Ontario campuses might be “online.”
Tags: budget, disabilities, participation, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Older students not eligible for Ontario tuition rebate
Sunday, January 15th, 2012
Jan 15 2012
That’s the fine print many failed to notice about Queen’s Park’s $430 million rebate plan that gives $1,600 back to university students and $730 back to community college students whose annual family income is below $160,000: it does not apply to students who have been out of high school for more than four years… mature students are excluded, as are part-time students, graduate students and Ontario students enrolled outside the province… Because people with children and aboriginals both tend to be older when they enter post-secondary education, both groups appear worse off under the rebate plan.
Tags: budget, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Education Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Canada Learning Bond helps low-income families
Monday, June 27th, 2011
June 26, 2011
Three years after arriving in Canada from the Philippines, the new mother had no job, no income and no home of her own, but she knew something that more than 1 million Canadians like her do not: Ottawa will give low-income parents a nest egg for their child’s higher education. Because she acted on this tip from her community centre, her son Luke, who is one, will have a $500 savings bond for future tuition, to which Ottawa will add $100 a year up to a maximum of $2,000. They need not kick in any money.
Tags: poverty, tax, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Native grads would soar if learning gap closed, activist says
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
June 13, 2011
Canada could be producing 4,200 more home-grown university grads a year and reap an estimated $401 billion more in economic productivity over 25 years if it wiped out the “tragic” learning gap between natives and the rest of Canada, says a First Nations lawyer and activist… Most reserves have waiting lists of students hoping for federal funding for tuition, which has been capped at 2 per cent each year for more than a decade, while the population — and demand for higher learning — has grown.
Tags: Indigenous, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Mental health top issue facing schools, coalition says
Thursday, June 2nd, 2011
June 1, 2011
The new Coalition for Children and Youth Mental Health, a network of 26 province-wide groups, has asked each political party to spell out a plan for coping with what some call the “sleeping giant” in schools. “We wouldn’t let a child walk around with a broken arm, but kids with mental illness suffer just the same,” said Catherine Fife, head of the Ontario Public School Boards Association, part of the coalition. The coalition’s figures are stark. One in five children suffers from a mental health problem yet some 80 per cent get no help.
Tags: mental Health, standard of living, youth
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Province to decide on satellite campuses for colleges, universities
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
May 31 2011
The Ontario government no longer will let colleges and universities decide where to set up satellite campuses — as many small and remote schools have done to gain a foothold in the populous GTA. From now on, Queen’s Park alone will determine if, and where, there will be new spinoff sites. The change is a bid to avoid uneven clusters of higher learning in parts of Ontario that leave other corners starved for post-secondary programs…
Tags: budget, ideology, rights
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Teachers pledge fresh support for northern reading camps
Friday, August 20th, 2010
August 18, 2010
They are the most at-risk children in Canada, in more danger of dying young and living poor than any of their peers. Aboriginal children born into the 49 fly-in reserves that dot the vast woodlands of northern Ontario have long been more likely to drop out of school, remain illiterate and attempt suicide than young people anywhere else in the province. They are among the young Canadians with the least hope. Yet a five-year push on literacy in these remote reserves is starting to make a difference…
Tags: philanthropy, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Education Debates | 1 Comment »
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