Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
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Canada’s universities commit to diversity with plan to make demographic data public
The promise to address under-representation of some groups in areas where it may occur, whether it’s the lack of Indigenous students in professional faculties or women in leadership posts, comes as universities are discussing how to meet equity targets in the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program… schools have consistently failed to meet equity targets set by the program’s steering committee. Academics with disabilities are particularly poorly represented among CRC holders
Tags: disabilities, Indigenous, multiculturalism, participation
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
School vouchers don’t improve educational outcomes. Elitist parents may be the culprits
… the quality of the pedagogy isn’t the only thing that shapes student outcomes in schools. The peer group matters a great deal; families with higher socioeconomic status are better able to navigate the educational system, and they value education very highly, traits they pass on to their children. Those parents also work hard to improve the quality of the schools their children attend.
Tags: ideology, participation, poverty, youth
Posted in Education Policy Context | No Comments »
Government should expand student placements into social sector
If the government expanded the new $73 million Student Work-Integrated Learning program to all students it could help tackle Canada’s most intractable social problems — such as homelessness, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, affordable housing, social cohesion and intercultural understanding… most CSL [community service-learning] students and community partners are excluded from government support under the program.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, participation, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Universities should make people think, not spare them from discomfort
If you can’t speak freely, you’ll quickly lose the ability to think clearly. Your ideas will be built on a pile of assumptions you’ve never examined for yourself and may thus be unable to defend from radical challenges. You will be unable to test an original thought for fear that it might be labeled an offensive one… the real crux of [the] case for free speech: Not that it’s necessary for democracy (strictly speaking, it isn’t), but because it’s our salvation from intellectual mediocrity and social ossification.
Tags: ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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Either invest or face more turmoil at Ontario’s colleges and universities
Canada has actually cut its public funding since 2008, and now we rank in the bottom half of advanced economies, spending well below what Denmark, Norway, and Sweden invest in their public post-secondary teaching, research, and innovation. The picture is the same in Ontario, where the provincial government has reduced public funding for universities and colleges and now ranks last in public per-student funding in Canada.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
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College strikes a symptom of broken business model
… an inordinate number of teachers are part-timers with partial loads who are paid an hourly wage that doesn’t cover time spent marking papers or preparing lectures. They don’t know from one semester to the next who or what they’ll be teaching… The dirty little secret of higher education is that working conditions have hit rock bottom. OPSEU, the union representing college teachers, wants half of teaching staff hired as full-timers. That hardly seems excessive.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
If Wynne’s Liberals were committed to equality, they’d help fund independent schools
Ontario should treat all schools equitably… we’re left with a divided system of education: a Catholic board that’s publicly-funded as a result of the special protections it’s afforded under the constitution, and no funding for other independent faith-based schools. A 1999 UN Human Rights Committee report classified this system as discriminatory.
Tags: budget, ideology, jurisdiction, rights, youth
Posted in Education Debates | 1 Comment »
One-third of Ontario college and university students receive free tuition grants
The free tuition grants are part of a number of changes to the student assistance program, which makes mature students eligible for the first time, and also requires repayment only after grads are earning $35,000 a year, up from the current $25,000. The government is now providing students with aid money up front, before tuition bills arrive, for families earning less than $50,000. Some 70 per cent of those students were expected to receive more in grants than average university tuition rates.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Education Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Ontario school boards to collect detailed data on hiring, suspensions
Ontario plans to revamp Grade 9 — with an eye to ending streaming in the first, “critical” year of high school — as part of its new equity plan that will also compel school boards to collect detailed data on everything from staff hires to student suspensions… The province’s three-year equity plan will, for the first time, have school boards collect data on race, ethnicity and other factors to determine if certain groups are disproportionately represented in areas such as suspensions or expulsions and work to address them.
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, participation, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Policy Context | No Comments »
End unjust and ineffective practice of academic streaming
For nearly a quarter century, this policy has done nothing to advance the academic prospects of Ontario students while doing a great deal to reinforce the educational disadvantages experienced by low-income and Black kids. It’s high time to end it… The education system should be a tool for redressing inequities, not compounding them.
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, poverty, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
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