Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Ford government is still underfunding education despite budget increase, school boards say
Wednesday, June 4th, 2025
Spending $30.3 billion on per-pupil funding in 2025-26 doesn’t make up for years funding didn’t keep up with inflation, says the boards’ association… when the Ford government took power in 2018, per-pupil funding was $12,282, and in the upcoming school year will be $14,560 — but when adjusted to 2018 dollars, funding has actually dropped, leaving a $693-million gap for the province’s 31 English public boards alone.
Tags: budget, Education, featured, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Bill 33 doesn’t dissolve Ontario’s school boards — but it’s yet another hit to their power
Wednesday, June 4th, 2025
At the point where cabinet is asserting the power to micro-manage the real estate portfolios of boards (and even pick and choose when schools can be renamed) it’s time to ask whether school boards actually serve a purpose anymore, or whether we’d be better off governing public education with more direct and clear lines of accountability to the premier and his cabinet.
Tags: Education, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Education Policy Context | No Comments »
Ontario adding 2,600 teacher college spaces amid shortage
Friday, May 23rd, 2025
Teachers union presidents say adding 2,600 new teacher education spots is a good start toward addressing the shortage but the government needs to work on not just recruitment, but retention… “There’s 40,000 people who are fully qualified, who aren’t working in education right now, and that’s because of the working conditions — the crumbling buildings, the overcrowding, the violence in the classroom… “You can put more bodies in, but are they going to stay?”
Tags: budget, Education, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Ontario budget leaves universities and colleges twisting in the wind
Sunday, May 18th, 2025
In 2019, the Ontario government cut tuition fees by 10 per cent and froze them. The measure cost universities $360 million and colleges $80 million, because the government didn’t make up for the budget shortfall. The government also cancelled free tuition for eligible low-income families…The budget also needed to address the structural underfunding of post-secondary education. Instead, funding is falling from $14.2 billion last year to $13 billion this year, to $12.8 billion in 2027-28… at a time when we should be investing heavily in our people.
Tags: budget, economy, Education, featured
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Where do the federal election candidates stand on postsecondary education?
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025
On April 28, Canadians will go to the polls to vote for the next federal government… To learn where each party stands on postsecondary education, according to their platforms and statements from party leaders during the campaign, see the list below, which will be updated weekly throughout the election.
Tags: budget, Education, featured, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
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.
Tags: budget, Education, ideology, jurisdiction, youth
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
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.
Tags: budget, disabilities, jurisdiction, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
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.
Tags: budget, housing, ideology, immigration, jurisdiction
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
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…
Tags: budget, ideology, Indigenous, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Education History | No Comments »
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…
Tags: budget, economy, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
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