Archive for the ‘Education Policy Context’ Category

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Trending towards inequality: Understanding the role of universities in the rise of contract academic work

Friday, November 15th, 2019

If universities begin to aggressively increase class sizes, eliminate course offerings, or succeed in imposing an increased workload on tenure-stream faculty, performance funding measures may lead to many contract faculty losing their jobs or having less work. However, as tenure-stream faculty retire and are not replaced, there will likely be an increased reliance on contract faculty. Neither scenario is favourable…

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Canada Research Chairs program announces new, more ambitious equity targets

Wednesday, September 11th, 2019

After 13 years of slow progress towards its equity goals, the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program is redoubling efforts to improve diversity within the program. On July 31, the Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat… announced more ambitious targets for representation of four equity-seeking groups: women, persons with disabilities, Indigenous people and visible minorities.

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Trudeau government outlines five-year, $148-million plan to attract more foreign students to Canadian universities

Tuesday, August 27th, 2019

The government is targeting countries with a large and growing middle class that may not yet have the higher-education capacity to educate all their students, or where the prospect of a Canadian education in English or French holds appeal… The strategy also allocates $95-million to encourage Canadian students to study and build ties abroad, particularly in Asia and Latin America, rather than the common destinations of the U.S., Britain and Australia.

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New sex-ed curriculum builds on previous Liberal version

Thursday, August 22nd, 2019

The new curriculum modernizes and builds on the one introduced by the Liberals in 2015 and even retains much of the material that originally caused all the controversy. That should allay concerns among educators that social conservatives were going to force changes that could put students — especially LGBT youth — at risk.

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CAUT condemns Heritage report on copyright

Friday, May 17th, 2019

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) is alarmed by recommendations released this week by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage regarding copyright law in Canada. The report, though produced by a committee mandated to take into consideration the broad range of stakeholder interests — including creators, the public, educators and students — focuses entirely on the interests of big publishers and their lobby groups.

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The Progressive Conservatives’ first budget targets Ontario’s universities

Monday, April 29th, 2019

… this budget delivered what OCUFA expected: a continued attack on workers’ rights, university autonomy and public services including postsecondary education, and needless cuts to public services, especially those aimed at low-income Ontarians… projected to be cut by $700 million, which mainly reflects a deep cut (over $670 million) to the Student Financial Assistance (OSAP) budget… The budget included several postsecondary-related announcements.

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Ontario faculty alarmed by proposal to overhaul university funding in provincial budget

Monday, April 15th, 2019

The government’s proposal is especially alarming as it promises to tie university funding to 10 unannounced metrics and ignores the reality that Ontario’s universities already receive the lowest per-student funding in Canada… “The government should be helping to create good jobs for faculty forced to work short-term precarious contracts and support students by reversing their decision to cut OSAP grants and attack student democracy.”

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“Revolutionary” new funding to shake up Ontario’s colleges and universities

Saturday, April 13th, 2019

Performance funding is popular in the United States, where about 29 states used it last year… The primary motivation was to increase graduation rates, the report said. “Colleges would readily accept state funding based on ‘seats in the classroom,’ but faced no consequences if students failed or withdrew from the class or dropped out completely.” … while research is mixed, performance funding generally has not improved graduation rates… performance funding can also have unintended consequences.

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Think tanks fill an important niche within Canada’s public policy landscape

Thursday, April 11th, 2019

It is difficult to define think tanks because no two are alike in terms of mission, scope or funding… “One thing all of them share at their core is an ongoing commitment to producing timely and policy-relevant research… What distinguishes and defines them is their sources and levels of funding” … “Non-urgent public policy thinking has been thinned out over time through government cutbacks, and the redeployment of public servants more towards keeping the government running and dealing with daily issues…

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Mandatory e-learning announced by Ford government comes under fire from NDP

Tuesday, March 26th, 2019

“this is not about 21st century learning, this is not about technology; this is about making students take courses online that are now mandatory… This is about removing 10,000 teachers from our classrooms.”… student leaders have already asked the province to back off on making such credits necessary for graduation.

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