Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

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Why doesn’t Doug Ford care about funding colleges and universities? Because you don’t care either

Friday, January 24th, 2025

Shortly after taking power in 2018, with colleges and universities starved for money, the premier further reduced their cash flow by ordering every campus to cut tuition by 10 per cent… But those tuition dollars weren’t his to cut — the money was remitted by students. More to the point, his government didn’t consider making up the difference to keep universities and colleges whole, leaving them in a deeper fiscal hole.

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In my next teacher-parent meeting, my focus will be the teacher. Here’s why

Tuesday, December 10th, 2024

Since Premier Doug Ford came to power in 2018, school board funding has dropped a stunning $1,500 per student, on average, when adjusted for inflation. The increase in class sizes and the introduction of mandatory online courses have resulted in the province having 5,000 fewer teachers than it would otherwise… With Ontario asking teachers to do more with less and blaming them for the shortfalls of underfunded schools, recruitment and retention will only become more challenging.

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Canada’s international student crisis was predicted — and ignored

Tuesday, December 10th, 2024

These are days of doom and gloom at Ontario’s universities and colleges. You don’t have to have a PhD to know why… provinces outside Ontario provide universities an average of $20,772 per full-time student. Ontario coughs up $11,471. To catch up — that is to be just average — would require spending another $7 billion a year. Ontario has responded by promising $1.3 billion over three years. 

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OCUFA, Laurentian and the First (and Last) CCAA Proceeding in the University Sector

Saturday, November 16th, 2024

Laurentian University’s programs, courses, and professors were terminated without regard to their academic contribution to the University, nor with any regard to the community that the University serves. Rather, a simplistic comparison between revenues and costs was used to justify the termination of programs such as physics, geography, political science, math and philosophy… created and mandated to offer postsecondary educational opportunities to Ontario’s francophone, northern, and Indigenous communities, it was precisely these programs that bore the brunt of the cuts…

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MPPs Acknowledge Ontario Public Universities Require Additional Funding

Friday, November 15th, 2024

OCUFA maintains that public universities rely too heavily on international student tuitions, due to decades of underfunding from the provincial government… increasing provincial funding to universities by 11.75% per year for five years [would] bring Ontario in line with the Canadian average of per-student funding. Currently, Ontario’s per student funding is dead last in the country…

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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