Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »
Teaching the Khan way
Monday, August 29th, 2011
Aug. 27, 2011
Salman Khan is a nerdy 34-year-old American with a genius for explaining things… he started to make a series of short instructional videos that explained the basic concepts. Then he put some of them on YouTube, and they took off… To date, he has turned out 2,400 low-tech mini-lectures on everything from basic addition to vector calculus and organic chemistry… The Khan approach shows how technology can be used to truly customize education and allow students to proceed at their own pace.
Tags: ideology, standard of living
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Dropout chiefs imperil a generation of kids
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
Aug. 17, 2011
Chiefs representing about 230 first nations in Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan have decided to boycott a three-person panel charged with finding fixes for the broken first nations education system. Native children will pay the price for this stiff-necked opposition, based on ancient animosities and petty political ambition. Right now, the federal government sends education grants to reserves, with chiefs using the money as they see fit. Some build and staff schools; some don’t. Only 40 per cent of on-reserve students graduate from high school, half the rate of the general population.
Tags: budget, Indigenous, participation, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Canadian universities switch to tech savvy course alternatives
Friday, July 29th, 2011
Jul 23 2011
Starting in September, thousands of Canadian students and faculty members will shift from Access Copyright to open and alternative access, relying on more flexible arrangements that will increase reliance on electronic course content and freely available materials that can be used without restriction. The change will suffer from some growing pains, but represents a major step toward better leveraging technology within the education system.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Charity Model Is Bad Economics
Sunday, July 17th, 2011
April 2011
Instead of the proper public funding of post-secondary education, we are left with the “charity model” where public institutions like universities beg the private sector for the gift of uncollected taxes — gifts that typically come with strings attached… As for the need for corporate tax cuts… corporate cash balances have risen 18 per cent since the end of 2007 — an increase the investment firm calls “staggering.”… Meanwhile, the government proposes to cut government spending, shifting onto the ordinary taxpayer the burden of both taxes and reduction in services.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Public schools cannot be places of prayer
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
Jul. 08, 2011
The 300 students who pray in the cafeteria actually have a nearby mosque they could pray at, and letting them do so during the school day would be a reasonable accommodation… So the issue, then, is not really accommodation of belief; instead, the school is accommodating the young people’s reluctance to return. Religious groups are free, in a democratic society, to challenge dominant ideas of equality, but the schools should not allot them space, on school time, to do so.
Tags: multiculturalism, participation
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Pathways to Education expanding with $28.5-million from Ontario
Tuesday, June 28th, 2011
Jun. 27, 2011
An inner-city education program that is achieving marked success in lowering the dropout rate for disadvantaged high-school students is expanding to new communities with the help of a fresh infusion of government funding. Pathways to Education Canada will receive $28.5-million over three years from the Ontario government to help more students in low-income communities graduate from high school and go on to college, university or a trade.
Tags: participation, poverty, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Canada Learning Bond helps low-income families
Monday, June 27th, 2011
June 26, 2011
Three years after arriving in Canada from the Philippines, the new mother had no job, no income and no home of her own, but she knew something that more than 1 million Canadians like her do not: Ottawa will give low-income parents a nest egg for their child’s higher education. Because she acted on this tip from her community centre, her son Luke, who is one, will have a $500 savings bond for future tuition, to which Ottawa will add $100 a year up to a maximum of $2,000. They need not kick in any money.
Tags: poverty, tax, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Justice Goes Global
Sunday, June 26th, 2011
June 14, 2011
Sandel’s popularity in Asia reflects the intersection of three trends. One is the growth of online education, where students anywhere now can gain access to the best professors from everywhere. Another is the craving in Asia for a more creative, discussion-based style of teaching in order to produce more creative, innovative students. And the last is the hunger of young people to engage in moral reasoning and debates, rather than having their education confined to the dry technical aspects of economics, business or engineering.
Tags: globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Education Policy Context | No Comments »
More Ontario JK students will get eye exams, free glasses
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011
June 20, 2011
In partnership with optometrists and makers of eyeglasses, a program that waives about $300 in fees to get glasses on junior kindergarten pupils needing them will expand… the program that started in 2009 [is expected to be] rolled out province-wide by 2015. The problem is that although eye exams by optometrists are covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan for children 19 and under, about 80 per cent of kids starting school have never had their eyes tested — and statistics suggest up to one-quarter of them will have vision problems that can be corrected
Tags: Health, participation, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Stop shafting undergrads, get profs back into the class
Sunday, June 19th, 2011
Jun. 18, 2011
In provincial politics, universities are of little interest to vote-seeking politicians. They are interested, it would seem, only in increasing access. They promise and brag about how many more spaces they have created, without worrying about what the people who occupy those spaces learn or receive as part of their education experience. The largest number of those spaces is occupied by undergraduates who have been getting the shaft or, to put matters less crudely, have not been receiving fair value for their increasing fees.
Tags: budget, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Recent Comments