This paper examines whether intermediary bodies are useful in advancing government goals for quality and sustainability in higher education systems. It explores the evidence about intermediary bodies through case studies of England, Israel, New Zealand and the United States. It also treats the case of Ontario, whose best-known intermediary bodies have been the Ontario Council on University Affairs and the colleges’ Council of Regents.
The theoretical literature on intermediary bodies in higher education suggests that intermediary bodies are potentially useful actors in policy and administration. Many intermediary bodies were established to manage growth but in recent years have been reoriented to managing fixed or declining resources and flat or declining enrolments.
In this qualitative self-‐‑study, we explore how curriculum theory informed the learning of teacher candidates within an intensive semester that serves as the foundation for a Secondary Teacher Education Program (STEP). Wanting to immerse teacher candidates in educational theory and position them as learning professionals from the first days of their program, we engaged them with the work of eleven curriculum theorists (Appendix A). Guiding questions for this inquiry include: How
did teacher candidates take up and negotiate theory as part of their emerging professional identities? How did teacher candidates understand the relationship between pedagogy and their learning of/through curriculum theory? How did teacher candidates embody diverse theories and understand the significance of this within and beyond this foundational semester? And finally, as teacher educators, how is our pedagogy developing through self-‐‑study?
The promotion of mental health and well-being in our students, faculty, and staff is important to the University of Calgary. Given the symbiotic relation between health and education, Universities are increasingly recognized as places to promote the health and well-being of the people who learn, work and live within them. Research-intensive universities create cultures that demand high performance while promoting excellence and achievement, and also carry the risk of stress, stigma, and challenges to mental health. With the recognition of the importance of promoting mental health and intervening to address illness in a timely way, we join groups across Canada and beyond that are committed to enhancing the mental health of university students, faculty, and staff.
W e’ve all read the startling stories about lax standards in higher education. As faculty members, we’ve struggled with the growing expectation among undergraduates that a minor amount of work should be the norm for collegelevel courses. In their 2011 book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa found that half of the students in the study’s sample "had not taken a single course during the prior semester that required more than 20 pages of writing, and one-third hadn’t taken one that required even 40 pages of reading per week."
This week, Harvard Business School launched its first annual Leading People and Investing to Build Sustainable Communities program, which set out to equip professionals from First Nations and native-American communities with new ideas for managing their businesses and resources.
Over 60 Indigenous people from across Canada and the United States attended the four-day course, in which professors taught investment practices and governance strategies, and provided opportunities for participants to put their heads together to solve issues in their communities back home.
Critical thinking is no longer a strange concept in this world. It is being talked about all over, from university to the
workplace, from developed countries to poor ones. The importance of thinking critically has never really been
considered properly until recently. In fact, critical thinking is believed to be the new intellect of the modern era that
reflects a person’s ability to analyze daily problems and make the right decision.
As it’s not a specific talent that people are born with, critical thinking requires practice and effort. Ironically, while
critical thinking has become popular all over the world, not many people know how to develop their critical thinking
skills effectively. Therefore, we are about to show you how you can effectively develop these skills.
As I've mentioned before, my 7-year-old daughter takes piano lessons. One of the biggest challenges has been getting her to play for herself, not for her parents. Often I'll ask her how she thought she played a song and I'll get a shrug in return. She plays, but she doesn't listen to herself play. That lack of listening, I fear, is a sign that she's just playing because we're making her.
Many of the teaching tips I've suggested in this column have been meant to encourage your students to take responsibility for their learning. For active-learning strategies to really work, I've argued, we need students to buy in completely to our courses. They need to want to learn for themselves — not for us or a grade. To accomplish that, we can invite students to take some control over the syllabus. We can turn course policies into collaborative projects, in which students have an equal say in determining important aspects of the course. We can encourage students to articulate their goals for the course, rather than just expect them to meet ours. And we can design our courses to make sure we haven't foreclosed any of those possibilities.
Over recent years, it has become increasingly common for students to pursue multiple pathways through the postsecondary education system. Current research in Canada shows that the movement of students both between and within colleges and universities is becoming more typical (e.g., Youth in Transition Survey, Statistics Canada). In Ontario’s colleges, this trend is evidenced by the fact that current students are more likely to have previous postsecondary experience than in the past. In 2007-08, approximately 37 per cent of college students reported having some previous postsecondary experience; this experience could include an incomplete or a complete credential from either college or university (Student Satisfaction Survey, MTCU). Many of these students were pursuing a second credential, as 11 per cent had previously completed a college diploma, and nine per cent had a university degree. In fact, pursuing multiple credentials is the intended goal of many postsecondary students. For example, in 2007-08, 21 per cent of college students indicated that their main goal in enrolling in college was “to prepare for further college or university study,” a percentage which has increased significantly from 16 per cent of students in 2000-01. In addition, many students make the decision to continue their studies while still attending college, or shortly after graduation. The Graduate Satisfaction Survey (MTCU) is administered to college graduates six months after graduation and includes questions on further education. The most recent survey showed that more than 26 per cent of the 2006-07 graduates were continuing their education within six months of graduation. Many recent college graduates choose to attend university; the percentage of graduates enrolled in university within six months of graduation increased substantially from five per cent for the 2001-02 graduates to nine per cent for 2006-07 graduates.
It feels like a truism to say that law has advanced the vital mission of public schooling. Even a cursory examination of the major legal developments that have occurred over the past 60 years highlights the indelible imprint of law on education. Brown v. the Board of Education (1954) began healing the festering wounds caused by the unconscionable separate but equal doctrine enshrined by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Lau v. Nichols (1974) ruled that a school had not provided non-English speaking Chinese students with an equal educational opportunity to learn English. Congress subsequently enacted section (f) of the Bilingual Education Act (1974) that created a responsibility to remove language barriers. State regulations on cyberbullying often surpass existing federal protections and help vulnerable students who can be endlessly tormented beyond the supervised safety of the schoolyard. These are only a few highlights from a much broader array of precedents demonstrating law’s ameliorative effects on education. Despite these imperfect attempts at using legal means to better instructional experiences across schools, there are still a number of areas where protection through law has not guaranteed an equal level of educational opportunity for students.
Raise your hand if your salary increased by more than 50 per cent in the past five years. Nope? Didn’t think so.
But it could go up that much by September if you’re the president of a college in Ontario. Or maybe it will rise by a mere 39 per cent.
Whichever, you get the picture. As the end of a five-year wage freeze on non-unionized public sector workers approaches, the province’s 24 colleges are setting the stage for massive pay increases for their presidents.
Deb Matthews, the minister responsible for post-secondary education, needs to rein them in. Not only to stop a salary race at the college level, but to manage pay expectations for other public sector workers, including those at universities, hospitals, school boards and government agencies.
The extent of the college presidents’ pay ambitions are made clear in documents released by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which opposes the proposed new salary levels.
This story begins late last school year, when I was standing in front of my Introduction to Film class, getting set up for the day’s session. The technology in the classroom was often glitchy, so I’d given myself plenty of time. I chatted with my teaching assistant about the new Twin Peaks while logging in to my email to retrieve the PowerPoint I’d sent myself.
That’s when I saw the message from my department with the subject header “2017-2018 Budget Cuts.” “Well, that can’t be good,” I thought and clicked to open it. It began, “Dear Sara, As you might know, the university is in the midst of a significant budget cut across all units for Financial Year 2018, which starts July 1.” And it ended, “Within this context, we unfortunately will not be able to offer the courses that we projected for you in 2017-2018. I am sorry to let you know about this development …”
This report is an assessment of the programme “Lernen vor Ort” [LvO – “Learning Locally”] initiated by the German federal government in order to support the development of local governance structures in education. LvO ran between 2009 and 2014 in about 40 participating local governments, which were chosen in a competitive process. It aimed at promoting cooperation between local governments and civil society stakeholders, creating sustainable structures in educational monitoring, management and consulting as well as improving local capacities in knowledge management. Besides providing
important background information on the German education system and the design of the LvO programme, this study engages in five detailed case studies of the implementation of the LvO programme in different local authorities. These studies are mainly based on approximately 90 interviews with local and national experts, and stakeholders. The main findings are that LvO can be regarded as a success due to the fact that it had a lasting and probably sustainable impact in the cases studied in this report, in particular with regard to those structures that produce concrete and visible outputs, such as educational monitoring. The case studies also reveal a number of local factors that influence the relative effectiveness of the implementation of the programme. Political leadership and support from the head of the local government are crucial, in particular during critical situations during the implementation. Furthermore, the impact of the programme was particularly positive, when the process of local implementation was characterised by clear communication strategies, broad stakeholder involvement in governing bodies and the implementation of concrete goals and projects. However, relative success also depended on important background factors such as local socio-economic conditions as well as financial and administrative capacities, which could not be adressed directly by the programme’s goals. The report concludes with some general recommendations and lessons learned of relevance for other countries.
A University of Victoria student is accused of sexually assaulting four women. Graduate students at the University of British Columbia allege the school delayed taking action on a serial abuser. A York University student testifies against the man she says assaulted her.
Canadian universities have often found themselves facing headlines about sexual violence. But advocates say most still lack stand-alone sexual assault policies, seen to be crucial in responding to attacks and supporting victims.
There is a long-standing debate over the value of certain postsecondary pro-grams in facilitating employment after graduation. The National Graduate Survey (2005) was used to examine how graduates of various programs differ in their pursuits of higher education, employment status, job-program relat-edness and job qualifications. Results suggest that graduates from humani-ties are more likely to pursue higher education, are less likely to be employed full time, are more likely to have jobs unrelated to their program, and are more likely to be overqualified for their jobs. These findings highlight that humanities programs may not provide the knowledge and skills that are in current economic demand.
The world of work has changed. Successful organizations know something others don’t: slow, steady and consistent no longer win the race. Competitive businesses today are fast, flexible and – most importantly - agile. They create fewer obstacles
to responding quickly. They take unpredictable, dynamic market trends in stride. They sidestep when necessary to keep moving forward because they’ve built a workforce based on a non-traditional model that is adaptable, fluid and responsive. They adopt simple, cost-effective processes through which they manage a workforce that is both connected and autonomous.
At most colleges and universities, summer offers a blessed break from the regular meetings of the academic year. It’s a relief to have a few months’ free from having to jockey for air time, listen to long-winded people opine on matters they know little about, navigate petty factional skirmishes, or shore up colleagues whose ideas are routinely shot down.
Now that it’s September, the prospect of returning to meeting-heavy days may seem enervating. But what if we made 2019-20 the year in which we change the traditional dynamics of our meetings? Could we find ways to make them more productive, less
contentious, and more open to voices that usually get muffled or silenced?
Numerous studies have found that men in the sciences publish at higher rates than women. But the designs of some of those studies make it difficult to isolate the possible origins of that gap. Women are less likely than men to attend prestigious doctoral programs, complicating any study of gendered publication rates among researchers with different educational backgrounds, for example, as journals favor prestige.
Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan) welcomes the opportunity to provide the Standing Committee on Finance with its recommendations for Budget 2018. This budget is an important opportunity to build on Budget 2017’s measures aimed at increasing access to skills upgrading and post-secondary education and strengthening innovation in Canada.
Canada’s colleges, institutes, cégeps and polytechnics stimulate innovation, drive productivity, and strengthen the middle class. They offer a vast array of post-secondary programs designed to meet the needs of the labour market, equip graduates with skills that make them resilient in periods of economic uncertainty and disruption, and provide retraining for adults facing job dislocation and unemployment. As the main providers of post-secondary education and skills development for Indigenous peoples, colleges and institutes also play an important role in fostering reconciliation.
Jobs paranoia is widespread in Canada. Elementary pupils are coming home after receiving the “job talk” from their teachers, typically emphasizing the importance of getting good grades so they can get into a high-quality university – rarely a college, a polytechnic institute or an apprenticeship program. Parents worry about enrolling their children in the “right” schools and academic programs. There is growing concern about the transition from school to work. News media, television programs and movies offer tales of underemployed university and college graduates, intense competition for decent jobs and chronic youth unemployment.
The Survey of Earned Doctorates, the data source for this report, is an annual census of individuals who receive research doctoral degrees from accredited U.S. academic institutions. The survey is sponsored by six federal agencies: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Department of Agriculture, and U.S. Department of Education. These data are reported in several publications from NSF’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. The most comprehensive and widely cited publication is this report, Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities.