This study examined aspects of approval processes for baccalaureate degree programs in colleges in the following 11 jurisdictions: Alberta, British Columbia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Flanders, Florida, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. More detailed profiles are provided for seven of the jurisdictions. In order to make the data more relevant for the Ontario reader, some comparisons with characteristics of the baccalaureate degree approval process in Ontario are noted.
Why do we study student technology choices and preferences? With the first student study launched in 2004 we had an instinctive sense of why the exercise was valuable. Several campuses had been collecting data on student technology use - some of them for quite a while - but this included little broad and generalizable data about how students in higher education were adapting to and using technology.
Creating effective solutions to global challenges will require a range of skills from leaders in the public and private spheres. The British Council, in partnership with Ipsos Public Affairs, conducted a study of current professional leaders with higher education qualifications1 from 30 countries, and across sectors, to reveal:
What are the higher education pathways of professional leaders around the world? What contribution did direct learning and other higher education experiences make to their careers?
This article reviews the history of large-scale education reform and makes the case that large-scale or whole system reform policies and strategies are becoming increasingly evident. The review briefly addresses the pre 1997 period concluding that while the pressure for reform was mounting that there were very few examples of deliberate or successful strategies being developed. In the second period—1997 to 2002—for the first time we witness some specific cases of whole system reform in which progress in student achievement was evident. England and Finland are cited as two cases in point. In 2003–2009 we began to observe an expansion of the number of systems engaged in what I call tri-level reform—school/ district/government. As Finland, Singapore, Alberta, Canada, Hong Kong, and South Korea continued to demonstrate strong performance in literacy, math and science, Ontario joined the ranks with a systematic tri-level strategy which virtually immediately yielded results and continues to do so in 2009. The nature of these large-scale reform strategies is identified in this article. It can be noted that very little productive whole system reform was going on in the United States. Aside from pockets of success at the level of a few districts since 2000, and despite the presence of a ‘policy without a strategy’ in the form of No Child Left Behind the US failed to make any progress in increasing student achievement. In the final section of the paper I consider the early steps of the Obama
administration in light of the ‘theory of action’ of whole system reform identified in this article and predict that there we will see a great expansion and deepening of large-scale reform strategies in the immediate future, not only in the U.S. but across the world.
March 6, 2014, Toronto350, the University of Toronto chapter of the larger 350.org movement, presented the Office of the President with a petition requesting that the Uni- versity of Toronto fully divest from direct investments1 in fossil fuels companies within the next five years and to stop investing new money in the industry [the “Petition”].2 In response to this petition, President Gertler struck an ad hoc Advisory Committee on Divestment from Fossil Fuels [the “Committee”] under the terms of the University’s Policy on Social and Political Issues With Respect to University Divestment [the “Policy”]. The Committee’s mandate was to review the Petition and accompanying brief, and consider the University’s response to the call
for divestment. The Committee was also invited to reflect more generally on the University’s role in responding to the challenges posed by climate change.
Why competency-based education?
Although competency-based education (CBEd) may seem relatively new to postsecondary education, the concept has been widely discussed throughout American education since the 1990s (Jones & Voorhees, 2002; Mulder, Gulikers, Biemans, & Wesselink, 2009). In fact, colleges including Western Governors University, Sinclair Community College, and Kings College were pioneering CBEd initiatives over a decade ago (2002). Several factors have focused current attention on CBEd in higher education in recent years, including the demand for expanded access to education, the need to reduce the cost of postsecondary education, and a shift from traditional models for learning. Online learning technology, for example, which supports the notion of learning anytime, anyplace, anywhere, also requires higher education to adjust and rethink the traditional educational system.
Post-secondary education is the great equalizer. It gives us all a chance to reach higher no matter where we come from or whatever our background. Both of my parents came from very modest upbringings and saw a university degree as a ticket to a good job and an entry to Ontario’s middle class. They, in turn, placed a high importance on post-secondary education and encouraged my sister and I to follow in their footsteps.
There is a lot about Ontario’s colleges and universities that we can be proud of, but we need to ensure our
students are getting the best value for their tuition. In Ontario today, we see far too many students graduate
with degrees and deep debts who can’t find a job.
We are spending a lot more money as a province, but we aren’t seeing the results. Government funding has increased by 84% since 2003, yet Ontario universities are slipping in international rankings, tuition keeps rising, new graduates keep heading out West and there are many jobs in the skilled trades that can’t be filled. This has got to change. We need to make the necessary changes to ensure our schools are the best in the world at preparing students for a career. The key will be incenting excellence, harnessing market forces, encouraging specialization and being honest. We cannot ignore the fact that increasingly university students end up in colleges, after accumulating significant student debt. We need a culture shift in our sytem. Promoting a ‘College First’ approach in our high schools will recognize the hundreds of thousands of jobs in the skilled trades and applied learning at risk of going unfilled and will help alleviate pressure on our universities while preparing those students who decide to
continue on to pursue a university degree.
We also cannot ignore the fact that our university rankings on the global stage have been slipping for some time. Our universities should be focused on quality, not quantity. Allowing undergraduate instructors to focus on teaching full time will improve the student experience by incenting excellence in teaching. Let us make no mistake about the promise we can offer our young graduates and the taxpayers who fund the system. A purposeful evolution of post-secondary education has the potential to do more for the long term health of Ontario than any other program or policy imaginable.
Progressive Conservatives Ontario
Seamless Pathways: A Symposium on Improving Transitions from High School to College gathered prominent Ontario educators, policy-makers and government leaders in Toronto on June 6, 2006. The purpose of the symposium was to bring together an expert group of education leaders.
The ability of postsecondary students to write and communicate proficiently is an expectation identified by many, including not only organizations such as the OECD but also other public and employer groups. There is concern, however, that students and thus employees often fail to meet expectations in these areas. To address this concern, it is necessary to understand more about the writing skills that students learn during their postsecondary education. This research project was designed to examine whether and how students are taught to write at university.
This report is a summary of research undertaken for Gabriel Dumont Institute Training and Employment, a branch of the Gabriel Dumont Institute, about the Gabriel Dumont Institute’s Aboriginal Apprenticeship Initiative. The initiative was administered by Gabriel Dumont Institute Training and Employment.
The report is divided into five sections. The next section (Section 2) provides a general overview of the labour market in Saskatchewan with particular emphasis on Aboriginal people and the skilled trades. Included in that section is a short-term outlook for employment in the apprenticeable trades. Section 3 describes the Saskatchewan apprenticeship system including statistics about the total number of apprentices and the number of Aboriginal apprentices in Saskatchewan.
A great deal of research has been conducted and published on the topic of hybrid or “blended” learning in university settings, but relatively little has been conducted within the college environment. The purpose of this multi-method study was to identify the impact of hybrid course delivery methods on student success and course withdrawal rates, and to evaluate faculty and
student experience of hybrid instruction from within the Canadian college environment.
Quantitative findings suggest that students achieved slightly lower final marks in hybrid courses as compared to the face-to-face control courses offered in the previous year, though the magnitude of this effect was very small, in the order of -1%. Further analysis revealed that students with high academic standing were successful regardless of course mode, while students with low GPAs performed slightly worse in hybrid classes. Course mode did not have an effect on withdrawal from the course, suggesting that the format does not impact course completion.
During the spring and summer of 2013, 41 Canadian universities conducted a survey of their baccalaureate graduates six or seven years following graduation (i.e. 2006 and 2007 graduates). Over 21,000 graduates provided information about their current employment situation, educational activity following their bachelor's program and their current social and civic involvement; and they assessed various elements of their academic program and university experience overall and the impacts these have in their lives today.
June 2014
The Canadian University Baccalaureate Graduate Outcomes Project
This report is the first in a series that will report the key findings of the survey. Future reports will cover other survey topics, including the relationship between current occupation and academic program, educational activity following baccalaureate graduation, graduates' assessments of the strengths,weaknesses and impacts of their academic program, and discipline-specific analyses (e.g. for the STEM disciplines, Humanities and Liberal Arts, etc.).
Sexual violence is more than just a crime against individuals. It threatens our families, it threatens our communities; ultimately, it threatens the entire country. It tears apart the fabric of our communities. And that’s why we’re here today -- because we have the power to do something about it as a government, as a nation. We have the capacity to stop sexual assault, support those who have survived it, and bring perpetrators to justice.
This paper reviews and critiques the existing literature on accompanying partners of international students (APIS), who are often an ignored population in programs and services for the internationalization of Canadian higher education. Particularly, we identify three issues. First, we argue that current research on this group overwhelmingly focuses on their social and cultural adaptation difficulties while ignoring their agency in dealing with life challenges in the host society. Second, we note that research on this population should go beyond an overemphasis on gender, to include a comprehensive analysis of how gender intersects with other unequal social relations, such as race and class, in contributing to the complexity and multiplicity of their lived experiences. Finally, we suggest that rather than conflating APIS with trailing partners of expatriates or immigrants and treating them as a homogenous group, researchers should do more to address their heterogeneity from an anti-essentialist approach.
Cyberbullying Dealing with Online Meaness, Cruelty and Threats
You heard about it happening to others. Perhaps the victim was a graduate student in a seminar, or an administrator at a high-stakes meeting. Maybe it was a young scholar at an academic conference where passions for a subject tend to run high and unbridled egos may roam. But you never really thought it would happen to you — until it does. Blindsided. Maybe the full impact didn't sink in until after the fact: You’d been smacked by an academic sneer.
The conventional pathway model in postsecondary education (PSE) has traditionally been one of simple, linear choices, where enrolment after secondary school in either college or university ultimately leads to the attainment of a credential and entry into the labour force. Today, however, PSE pathways are no longer as direct. Fewer students are entering PSE programs directly from high school (Bayard and Greenlee, 2009: 11) and students are more likely to have previous PSE experience or to attain multiple credentials than students in the past (Boothby and Drewes, 2006: 6; Bayard and Greenlee, 2009: 11; Colleges Ontario (CO), 2009). Students are opting to alternate between part- and full-time studies, switch programs, return to PSE after an
absence or time in the workforce, pursue further credentials, or transfer between postsecondary institutions and even sectors.
Faculty and staff are the heart of an institution. Colleges and universities have hundreds and sometimes thousands of employees who each day deliver on the institution’s brand promise to students and others. But have we truly invested in understanding and articulating our institution’s employer brand, with prospective and current employees in mind?
During my dissertation research on higher education multi-campus brand coherence, I studied a peer institution of my university. The qualitative data collection included one-on-one interviews with more than 20 senior administrators (starting with the president), whose areas of responsibility were closely connected to the university’s brand. Participants often asked who
else I was meeting with and responded with surprise when I mentioned the vice president for human resources. “Oh, that’s interesting. Why would you want to meet with HR?”
Conference participants agreed that the innovation process is complex, and that models cannot simply be imported wholesale from one national context to another. However, successful innovation systems do appear to include common elements: strong
support for basic research; the involvement of students as researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs; support for creativity and risk-taking in research; multidisciplinary collaboration; and strong university-industry ties.
The path to economic mobility increasingly runs through postsecondary education. Although the combination of rising tuition prices and the difficult labor market have raised questions about the value of education after high school, degree and
certificate holders are still better off than those with just a high school diploma.