To compete in an interconnected and global marketplace, Canadian companies require an increasingly strong and skilled workforce.
However, a lack of comprehensive labour market data, particularly on employment trends and skill requirements, makes it difficult to identify and analyze the current state of the Canadian job market.
This report maps learning outcomes associated with three Ontario advanced diploma programs in Business (Accounting Administration, Human Resources Administration, and Marketing Administration) in order to determine whether these credentials are equivalent to baccalaureate degrees in an international (European and American) context. In so doing, it draws on recent discussions of learning outcomes in both Ontario and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), particularly with regard to the Bologna Process. It also provides more information for current Ontario debates about the positioning of the three-year advanced diploma.
The main task of the Working Group on Adult Learning of the INES Labour Market, Economic and Social Outcomes network is the development of indicators on Adult Learning for publication in the annual volume “Education at a Glance” of the OECD. As part of this task, a list of 18 policy goals/issues in the domain of adult learning have been identified through broad consultations. After identifying the policy goals a theoretical framework was developed in order to be able to systematically select indicators for monitoring them. The theoretical framework is based on a systemic approach, identifying context, input, processes, output and outcome of the system of Adult Learning. The policy goals to be monitored and the theoretical framework constitute the basis for the definition and selection of a list of indicators which might be published in EAG. The third element in the development of international indicators is the existence of comparable data of good quality. The paper includes a list of 44 indicators which are practical to publish with existing data sources or with data sources likely to become available in the near future. The coverage of the policy areas is uneven, reflecting both the focus of existing data sources and the difficulties of some data gathering exercises.
Abstract Religious colleges and universities make up a substantial segment of the higher education landscape in North America, but the incidence of sexual violence on these campuses remains understudied. This study estimates the incidence of sexual violence on independent Christian campuses using a sample of part-time and full-time undergraduate students (N = 668) from eight private Christian colleges in Ontario, Canada. Using two widely used measures of sexual violence enabled comparisons with studies of self-reported incidents at secular and public colleges and universities. The findings show that 18% of women at religious colleges reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact within the past year, compared to studies of self-reported rates on secular campuses ranging from 21.4% to 31.4%. Exploratory investigation of factors related to victimization suggests that religious colleges may provide a “moral community” that could reduce the risk of sexual violence.
Résumé Quoique les universités religieuses contribuent considérablement à l’ensemble de l’enseignement supérieur en Amérique du Nord, la fréquence des agressions sexuelles sur leurs campus demeure peu étudiée. La présente étude estime le nombre d’agressions sexuelles sur des campus chrétiens indépendants à l’aide d’un échantillon d’étudiant(e)s de premier cycle à temps partiel et à temps plein (N = 688) provenant de huit universités chrétiennes privées en Ontario (Canada). L’utilisation de deux échelles d’agressions sexuelles fréquemment utilisées a permis de comparer notre étude à d’autres études qui traitent de la fréquence d’agressions sexuelles déclarées par les victimes dans les universités laïques et publiques. Nos résultats démontrent que dans les universités religieuses, 18 % des femmes ont rapporté des contacts sexuels non désirés au cours de l’année dernière, comparativement à de 21,4 à 31,4 % des femmes des universités laïques ayant rapporté des agressions sexuelles. Des facteurs liés à la victimisation suggèrent la possibilité que les universités religieuses puissent offrir une « communauté morale » qui diminue les risques d’agression sexuelle.
Can all the universities that claim to be “world-class” actually live up to the claim? If they could be, would that be desirable public policy? It could be that there are so many different meanings of “world-class” that the term in practical effect is an oxymoron: the defi nition of “world” is determined locally when conceptually it should be defi ned internationally. This paper discusses different kinds of institutional quality, how quality is formed and how it can be measured, particularly by comparison. It also discusses the subtle but fundamental differences between quality and reputation. The paper concludes with the suggestion that world-class comparisons of research quality and productivity are possible, but that any broader application to the “world-class” quality of universities will be at best futile and at worst misleading.
In this paper we utilize interview data to explore the workings of a college–community partnership program that delivers tuition-free, for-credit courses to low-income adult students in neighbourhood-based settings. Addressing the interplay of individual and structural barriers on the educational readiness of students, our findings explore how the program builds participants’
confidence and self-belief, and how the neighbourhood-based delivery model encourages their engagement with post-secondary education (PSE). We find that the value of embedding PSE capacity and resources in low-income communities lies not only in its potential to engage adult learners, but also in how it nurtures a greater sense of community integration and social inclusion. We
conclude by suggesting that our study provides a useful foundation for institutions elsewhere aiming to recalibrate and extend their community outreach strategies when seeking to promote post-secondary access and engagement for low-income populations.
According to researchers, better-educated parents generally provide their children with a more favourable learning nvironment, increasing the likelihood that they’ll pursue higher education. These parents also have higher educational aspirations for their children, reinforcing this dynamic. On the other hand,“first-generation” youth – those whose par- ents haven’t attended a
postsecondary education institution – are “less likely to plan for higher education, to be convinced of its benefits or to have above-average high school grades,” according to a report from the defunct Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation.
Le processus d’internationalisation des établissements d’enseignement technique suit une évolution qui lui est propre et qui est fortement influencée par le contexte géopolitique local (Gallagher & Dennison, 1995). Cette étude analyse l’évolution des activités internationales et des stratégies organisationnelles des collèges d’enseignement général et professionnel
(cégeps) entre 2000 et 2014, afin d’identifier la phase qui caractérise le mieux le processus d’internationalisation (Raby & Valeau, 2007), de même que l’influence du contexte géopolitique sur ce processus. Les données tirées des quatre enquêtes réalisées par Cégep international (2000, 2005, 2010) et la Fédération des cégeps (2014) montrent une croissance soutenue des
activités internationales, mais un recul entre 2010 et 2014 des stratégies organisationnelles, ce qui suggère l’entrée d’une cinquième phase – postinstitutionnalisation – que nous appelons phase de la diffusion. L’émergence d’une communauté de pratique formée par le Gouvernement du Québec, les cégeps et la Fédération des cégeps aurait favorisé cette croissance, et la
réorientation des objectifs gouvernementaux pourrait expliquer le recul récent des stratégies organisationnelles.
The internationalization of technical education institutions is influenced by the local geopolitical context (Gallagher & Dennison, 1995). This study analyzes the evolution of international activities and organizational strategies taking place in Quebec’s collèges d’enseignement general et professionnel (CEGEPs) between 2000 and 2014, in order to identify the internationalization phase (Raby & Valeau, 2007) and assess the influence of Quebec’s geopolitical context. The data come from four surveys conducted by CEGEP International (2000, 2005, 2010) and the Federation of CEGEPs (2014), and they show a sustained growth of all international activities, but a decline in organization strategies between 2010 and 2014. We formulate the hypothesis that CEGEPs have entered a fifth and post-institutionalization phase that we called “dispersion”.
A community of practice including the Government of Quebec, CEGEPs and the Federation of CEGEPs would have contributed to the growth of international activities, and recent changes in the government’s policy emphasis could explain the decline in CEGEPs’ organizational strategies.
This white paper was developed through the collaboration of a dedicated advisory team of community college practitioners and assessment industry experts who worked diligently through meetings, email correspondence, and conference calls to develop the philosophy, content, and structure of the Assessment Framework for the Community College. Questionmark Corporation committed resources to the project to draft the paper, facilitate meetings of the advisory team, and produce the final copy. The paper is labeled version 1.0, indicating that the framework will continue to evolve as educators apply its concepts and principles and identify ways in which to improve and expand its focus.
As governments around the world struggle with doing more with less, efficiency analysis climbs to the top of the policy agenda. This paper derives efficiency measures for more than 8,600 schools in 30 countries, using PISA 2012 data and a bootstrap version of Data Envelopment Analysis as a method. We estimate that given current levels of inputs it would be possible to increase achievement by as much as 27% if schools improved the way they use these resources and realised efficiency gains. We find that efficiency scores vary considerably both between and within countries. Subsequently, through a second-stage regression, a number of school-level factors are found to be correlated with efficiency scores, and indicate potential directions for improving educational results. We find that many efficiency-enhancing factors vary across countries, but our analysis suggests that targeting the proportion of students below low proficiency levels and putting attention to
students’ good attitudes (for instance, lower truancy), as well as having better quality of resources (i.e. teachers and educational facilities), foster better results in most contexts.
This article makes the case that Canadian universities—both within and be- yond their campuses—must broaden their visions of third-age learners. Ca- nadian third-age learners—defined for the purposes of this article as persons seeking formalized education who are in the stage of life beginning at retire- ment—are more numerous, active, financially stable, and diverse as well as healthier and better educated than at any other time in our history. It follows that Canadian universities have much to offer and gain by both deepening and broadening their involvement with these learners. I argue that universi- ties must consider multi-pronged forms of collaboration and must be motivated, at all times, not by short-sighted financial concerns but by their core obligation to serve the public good by fostering community engagement.
Background/Context:
Scarce research has been conducted examining why students choose to attend higher priced for-profit institutions over community colleges. The authors suggest that increased national concern over proprietary higher education warrants an in-depth comparative case study of the choice factors utilized by for-profit and community college students.
Francophone students represent a unique population within Ontario, and understanding their educational experience is an important factor for developing policies and programs that contribute to their development, both as individual learners and with respect to the linguistic, cultural and economic vitality of the broader francophone community. Over the past few decades, postsecondary education (PSE) has increasingly become a focal point for all Canadians, with research linking length of schooling and levels of education to engagement in the workplace, career stability, occupational status, wealth, stronger social ties, and better psychological and physical health (Pallas, 2000). More recently, federal and provincial governments have linked the strength of the Canadian economy to the expansion of postsecondary enrolment (Industry Canada, 2001; Rae, 2005).
The skills that individuals develop play a pivotal role in determining their labour-market opportunities and life chances in general, and are of vital importance to a country’s economic performance and many social outcomes. Post-secondary education (PSE) is a primary means by which Canadians obtain the skills that they need.
It is therefore essential to have accurate, up-to-date, and relevant learning and labour market information (LLMI) that is widely available so that all players in the PSE system – students making their PSE choices, PSE institutions deciding which programs to offer, policy makers, and the general public – can make informed decisions.
Attention now turns to the upcoming report of the fundamental science review panel chaired by David Naylor.
The Trudeau government tabled its second budget on March 22, promising to address economic challenges facing the country and cultivate a nimble workforce through investment in education and skills development. Among its many elements, the budget expands the Canada Student Loans and Grants program and earmarks $90 million over two years for Indigenous students. However, the budget included no new funding for the three major research granting councils – the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research – dismaying many in the research community.
Ontario firms and organizations are being challenged to increase productivity through innovation in order to compete on the fiercely competitive world stage and improve the quality of life of Ontarians. Yet, Ontario suffers from innovation gaps
that place its productivity and prosperity goals at risk.
Contract academic faculty make an enormous contribution to postsecondary institutions: in teaching, in research, and in administrative service. And yet they inhabit an uncertain, and sometimes perilous, space within the Canadian university system. For the most part, they lack job security. Their salaries are usually low. Many receive few, or no, health benefits. Most have no access to a pension plan. Full-time contract faculty teach more students, and over longer hours, than do their tenured and tenure-track colleagues: this can create challenges in staying current with changes in their disciplines and staying competitive in the narrowing job market. Many contract academic faculty report lack of access to meaningful decision-making within their Departments. Many perceive themselves to be unprotected by the basic protocols of academic freedom. The Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE) seeks the support of our association members, our fellow scholarly associations, and Canadian English Departments in establishing more equitable, humane and respectful working conditions for Canada’s contract faculty professionals.
One of the advantages of academic-occupational integration is that it provides an opportunity to teach reading and writing skills in the context of the workplace applications, permitting literacy skills and content knowledge to develop simultaneously. This approach, a form of contextualized instruction (Mikulecky, 1998) is distinctly different from traditional approaches which see literacy skills as a prerequisite to learning content (Sticht, 1995). The purpose of this segment is to provide descriptions of a variety of ways in which instructors in community colleges are contextualizing literacy instruction in occupational content. The instructional activities are discussed in Perin (2000a).
For a growing number of student, the post-secondary experience invovles a mixed backpack of university courses, college programs, intrships, an online class or two, and even perhaps a few YouTube tutorials. But whatever the mix,it's bound to be unique for each student.
There’s mounting evidence suggesting that student evaluations of teaching are unreliable. But are these evaluations, commonly referred to as SET, so bad that they’re actually better at gauging students’ gender bias and grade expectations than they are at measuring teaching effectiveness? A new paper argues that’s the case, and that evaluations are biased against female instructors in particular in so many ways that adjusting them for that bias is impossible.