Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

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About to graduate, education students question fairness of new mandatory math test

Tuesday, December 3rd, 2019

Education students across the province are campaigning against the math test for new teachers introduced by the Conservative government even while they cram to prepare for it… The test will assess both their knowledge of the math curriculum from Grades 3 to 11 and pedagogy, or the best way to teach the subject… based on “core understandings, otherwise known as big ideas, surrounding important content dimensions in mathematics.”

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Violence against Ontario elementary teachers shouldn’t be a contract issue — it’s too important

Sunday, December 1st, 2019

Over the last decade, it has become the norm to integrate students with complex special needs into regular classrooms. Some boards still offer small, separate classes with more individual help, but that’s not what most parents demand… Students who can’t manage in a regular classroom even with a full-time educational assistant should be given a different type of help…

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How academics can improve their quality of life

Friday, November 22nd, 2019

In this ever-widening climate of financial scarcity and job insecurity, it’s no wonder that early and mid-career researchers are working themselves to the bone just to have a fighting chance of staying in the game. Many scholars are giving up and walking away entirely – and that should worry us. Impoverishing research and education damages our societies and weakens our democracies.

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Province aims to boost foreign student numbers

Friday, November 15th, 2019

… the provincial government has designed a new policy for partnerships between publicly-funded colleges and private education providers… Such partnerships will bring investment to those colleges, allowing for such things as new equipment and infrastructure… Along with the economic advantage, the influx of international students brings cultural wealth to local colleges and their communities

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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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We need to talk about this in Ontario. But we probably won’t

Friday, November 15th, 2019

“Because my wife has French-language rights, and because we’re Catholic, I get to choose between four different schools to send my kids to. The other 70 per cent of Ontarians don’t get that choice… They can only go to an English public school. How is that fair for anyone?” … Parents are struggling with all manner of cuts and shortcomings to their children’s education… a lot of people will tell you it’s because we have multiple boards.

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Laurentian relaunches tuition waiver program for former youth in care

Wednesday, October 30th, 2019

in January 2019, the current provincial government made widespread changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program, favouring grants and loans and marking the end of free tuition for lower-income students, prompting Laurentian to re-launch the program… “… after age 18, the lives [of youth in care] are a huge challenge… In the end, as a government, you pay for it anyway. … You can’t stop caring about them after 18.”

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University performance-based funding is bound to fail

Thursday, October 24th, 2019

… there is a strong call for a significant proportion of performance to be based on narrow labour-market outcomes, commercialization and economic imperatives… the collection of system-wide data is not a bad idea on its own… However… it runs the real danger of skewing university programs and perverting the very objectives it sets out to measure through over-emphasis and, frankly, “gaming” of one sort or another.

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Free speech on campus means universities must protect the dignity of all students

Friday, October 11th, 2019

… these controversies are a demonstration of the external pressures created by movements that test the limits of democratic tolerance, and partly they reflect changes in culture which affect the internal balance of power within the university… universities must take an active stance in support of all members’ equal dignity, so that all are able to contribute to a shared mission.

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Strike-averting deal with Ontario education workers includes $20M to bring back laid off support staff

Monday, October 7th, 2019

The provincial government will spend $20 million a year to ensure support staff who were laid off last month return to Ontario schools — and remain there for the next three years — and another $58 million annually to help create more support for special education students… educational assistants, early childhood educators, custodians and office staff — also retained all sick day benefits…

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