Archive for the ‘Education Debates’ Category

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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.

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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

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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.

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Ontario professors offer a blueprint for revitalizing public universities

Tuesday, February 6th, 2024

Ontario has the lowest per-domestic student funding level for universities in Canada… The government of Ontario’s disinvestment has led universities to look elsewhere for revenue, including sky-high international student tuition fees… said Jenny Ahn, OCUFA Executive Director. “The current state of affairs for Ontario universities is unsustainable. Our recommendations for the provincial budget provide a path forward for investing in public education.”

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What Ontario’s chronic underfunding of education looks like

Saturday, December 16th, 2023

School boards across the province are sounding the alarm over their slashed budgets and serious staffing shortages because boards can no longer afford to pay proper living wages to attract and retain staff. And it looks like increasing violence in the classroom due to inadequate staffing and a lack of qualified, caring adults in the building. But every single one of these issues is preventable.

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Ontario’s colleges and universities are strapped for cash. A panel has wisely proposed a fix

Thursday, November 23rd, 2023

… salary and benefit costs in Ontario’s universities are, per full-time equivalent student, among the lowest of any province. And as the report said, all organizations that made submissions “emphasized the value of post-secondary education in creating and maintaining a highly qualified and relevant talent pipeline in Ontario.” As has become obvious, the government’s lack of vision on this file does not just fail a sector. It fails the future.

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When did the erosion of Ontario’s universities and colleges start?

Friday, November 17th, 2023

In 2019 Ford cut tuition fees by 10 per cent and kept them frozen… It was destructive. Ontario’s per-student funding for universities was only 57 per cent of that in all other provinces while its colleges were at 44 per cent…This funding gap is causing such hardship that eight of 23 universities, including Queen’s University and Waterloo, are running deficits. Some may crumble or break, as did Laurentian University.

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Want financially stable universities? Provide the investment students and faculty deserve

Tuesday, November 14th, 2023

… the financial stability of post-secondary education is in crisis without an increased investment in post-secondary education from the province… our province already having the lowest investment per student across all of Canada… questions remain around what a “successful” post-secondary system looks like to the provincial government… Universities require more investment because they are major economic drivers for the communities in which they operate.

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Investing in university infrastructure is an investment in the future

Thursday, August 31st, 2023

… with flat tuition revenue in Ontario, universities have dwindling funds to launch large capital projects, even in partnership with private corporations or donors, as these partnerships often require the institution to come to the table with matching funds… An investment in the infrastructure of our universities is an investment in our communities and the future prosperity and well-being of all Canadians. We cannot afford to defer this any longer.

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It’s time to abolish the Catholic school system in Ontario

Thursday, June 1st, 2023

The demographic and political imperatives that required a separate system no longer exist. The system continues to exist because of a powerful lobby, entrenched interests, and inertia… it would take only Ontario and the federal government to do so. The legal path to ending public denominational funding is much easier than you think. There would be court challenges and protests, but the separate-system backers would lose.

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