Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Why teachers like me are dreading the return to school
Wednesday, September 4th, 2024
… 30 per cent of Ontario teachers leave the vocation in the first five years as educators. Ontario educators are leaving teaching behind as severe provincial spending cuts, the strain of COVID and a drastic rise in student violence have created an education crisis in Ontario… The provincial government began slashing funding to education in 2019. This resulted in multibillion dollar budget shortfalls for Ontario boards… A 2023-2024 survey reported a 24 per cent shortage of teaching staff in elementary schools, and a 35 per cent teaching shortage in secondary schools.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Nigmendra Narain speaks truth about Ontario’s manufactured university crisis
Thursday, May 30th, 2024
ON funding $6000 below national average… this scarcity of university funding… has been completely manufactured by a provincial government bent on ‘saving tax-payer dollars’ by downloading costs onto individuals while encouraging public-private partnerships… Ontario’s ratio is currently 34 students : 1 professor. Contrast that with the rest of Canada averaging 23 students : 1 faculty.
Tags: budget, ideology, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Province urged to take time to rethink flawed post-secondary education bill
Friday, May 10th, 2024
Bill 166 is being touted as a potential law to improve transparency and student mental health, and to combat racism and hate on the province’s post-secondary campuses… The provincial government is using a manufactured crisis as an excuse for increased ill-informed ministerial interference… What we do need is a real solution to the real crisis created by government through more than a decade of funding cuts and squeezes.
Tags: jurisdiction, mental Health, multiculturalism
Posted in Education Policy Context | No Comments »
Ontario has lost 5,000 classroom educators since 2018
Wednesday, May 8th, 2024
In 2024-2025, Ontario will have 4,990 fewer classroom educators than it would have had if the funding formula hadn’t changed since 2018-19. Under the new formula, kindergarten will have to make do with 1,600 fewer staff. Grades 4 to 8 will have almost 1,000 fewer staff. Grades 9 to 12 will lose almost 2,600 positions… Depriving Ontario’s children of educators is the worst thing this government can do for the future of this province.
Tags: budget, child care, ideology, standard of living, youth
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Ontario budget gets failing grade from university professors
Wednesday, March 27th, 2024
“Universities are in a crisis that the province manufactured through chronic underfunding.” … OCUFA was glad to see an extension of a freeze on tuition fees for postsecondary students, but the government did not invest in universities for this lost revenue, expecting universities to continue to do much more with much less… $1.3 billion for Ontario’s colleges and universities over the next three years… is eight times less than… OCUFA’s recommendation for university funding to reach just the Canadian funding average.
Tags: budget, ideology, jurisdiction, youth
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Ontario needs to pony up more cash for colleges and universities
Friday, March 8th, 2024
A short-term, piecemeal funding plan won’t work. The Ford PCs won’t be able to solve decades of chronic post-secondary underfunding in a year or two or three. But they can begin the process of instituting stable, predictable, and sufficient funding… It’s the smart thing to do. It’s the right thing to do. And in the long run, the money the government invests in education today will return more than it’s worth.
Tags: budget, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Beyond the cafeteria: The economic case for investing in school meals
Monday, March 4th, 2024
In the long-term, universal free school lunches can also improve children’s health, academic performance and subsequent economic outcomes throughout life… Our new research summarizes the strong economic rationale for investing in school meal programs in Canada. Universal school meals can not only provide immediate relief to families, but also build a legacy of improved public health and economic prosperity for generations to come.
Tags: economy, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living, women, youth
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Here’s why Doug Ford can get away with squeezing Ontario’s colleges and universities
Thursday, February 29th, 2024
This week, Dunlop ‘s ministry had fun with figures by coughing up — and then dressing up — roughly $1 billion in one-time funding, stretched over three years, spread across so many areas that it amounts to a rounding error and a strategic error… In truth, their policy is neither idiocy nor ideology, merely expediency. There are no votes to be had in higher tuition for higher education, and there are no votes to be lost in starving the system of proper funding to keep it afloat
Tags: budget, ideology
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Ontario professors say new postsecondary funding a drop in the bucket
Wednesday, February 28th, 2024
“The deficits Ontario universities face are due to a manufactured crisis by the province due to chronic underfunding. And this new spending will keep Ontario’s universities dead last in per-student funding compared to every province in the country” … OCUFA is pleased to see a commitment to freezing tuition fees for domestic students, but noted there is no commitment to more direct funding for universities to make up for the loss in revenue from that freeze.
Tags: budget, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Ontario adds $1.3B in post-secondary funding, freezes tuition for three more years
Tuesday, February 27th, 2024
Ontario ranks 10th out of 10 in every comparison of interprovincial post-secondary financing, according to a report last year by Higher Education Strategy Associates. International students now give more money to Ontario’s institutions than the government does… Raising Ontario’s level of per-student funding to the average of the other nine provinces would require $7.1 billion per year in additional spending — much higher than the current level of operating funding at around $5 billion
Tags: budget, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »