Digital Talent: Road to 2020 and Beyond is Canada’s first national digital talent strategy. It highlights the opportunities and challenges facing Canada’s digital economy and underscores the importance of digital talent as one of the most critical advantages for Canada in a global economy. The strategy is aimed at ensuring that Canadians are well prepared to succeed as skilled workers and entrepreneurs in this fast pace econo y, as well paving the way for greater participation as consumers and citizens in an increasingly digital world.
Résumé
Les compétences et les acquis d’expérience des adultes sont méconnus et peu valorisées dans la société contemporaine axée sur l’écrit, les savoirs scolaires et les diplômes. En raison de leurs conditions de vie précaires, de leur difficulté d’accès au monde de l’écrit et de la faible reconnaissance de leurs acquis d’expériences, nombreux adultes non diplômés sont exclus des
décisions publiques et de la résolution des problèmes vécus dans leur communauté. Le but de la recherche était d’identifier et de comprendre les compétences et les pratiques des adultes non diplômés durant la résolution d'un problème environnemental. On voulait répondre aux questions suivantes : Quelles sont les ressources (cognitives, affectives, sociales…) et les pratiques que les adultes non diplômés mettent à profit durant la résolution d’un problème environnemental ? et Les adultes non diplômés, malgré leur faible niveau d’alphabétisme, sont-ils capables de proposer des solutions efficaces à un problème
environnemental ?
There are about 420 registered private career colleges (PCCs) in Ontario – the number is in constant flux. 60% of schools are ten years of age or younger. They serve 53,000 full time equivalent (FTE) students, or about 1 in 15 Ontario postsecondary students. Their overall vocational revenues are in the order of $360M annually. They are mostly small; 70% have total revenues under $1M and average enrolment is under 200.
The movement of students between postsecondary institutions is becoming increasingly common and has created a need for greater emphasis on postsecondary education (PSE) pathways. This report outlines the available data on postsecondary student mobility within Ontario, with a focus on mobility between Ontario’s colleges and universities.
This is the final evaluation report for the Blended Synchronicity (BlendSync) Project as required by the project reporting requirements of the Office for Learning and Teaching.
The evaluation addresses the broad evaluation question: “To what extent was the BlendSync project successful at meeting its stated outcomes and producing its deliverables?”
Success in college and university is more than what you learn in a classroom. It's about navigating the system, asking for help when you need it, finding places were you belong and preparing for your future career and life.
Our goal is to introduce you to the areas called Student Affairs, Student Services, Student Success, Student Life and Campus Life. Whatever it's called, this group of people , programs and services will assist you in registering for classes, staring a student club, working on a difficult class assignment, talking to you when you're stressed or need to see a doctor, and much more.
According to the Consortium for School Networking's 2015 IT Leadership Survey, 84% of school technology officials expect that at least half of their insructional materials will be digitally based with three years.
In this working paper, Earl and Timperley argue that evaluative thinking is a necessary component of successful innovation and involves more than measurement and quantification. Combining evaluation with innovation requires discipline in the innovation and flexibility in the evaluation. The knowledge bases for both innovation and evaluation have advanced dramatically in recent years in ways that have allowed synergies to develop between them; the different stakeholders can bring
evaluative thinking into innovation in ways that capitalise on these synergies. Evaluative thinking contributes to new learning by providing evidence to chronicle, map and monitor the progress, successes, failures and roadblocks in the innovation as it unfolds. It involves thinking about what evidence will be useful during the course of the innovation activities, establishing the range of objectives and targets that make sense to determine their progress, and building knowledge and developing practical uses for the new information, throughout the trajectory of the innovation. Having a continuous cycle of generating hypotheses, collecting evidence, and reflecting on progress, allows the stakeholders (e.g., innovation leaders, policymakers, funders, participants in innovation) an opportunity to try things, experiment, make mistakes and consider where they are, what went right and what went wrong, through a fresh and independent review of the course and the effects of the innovation. This paper describes issues and approaches to each phase of the cycle. It concludes by outlining the synergies to be made, building capacity for evaluative thinking, as well as possible tensions to be addressed.
This study contributes to the literature on the schooling of homeless and highly mobile students. Although previous work has detailed the demographics of home- lessness, the effects of homelessness on academic progress, and particular legal issues in homeless education, this research focused on how individual and institutional relationships influence homeless education.
This pilot study examines alternative entrance pathways into York University undergraduate degree programs for students who apply from outside the formal education system. These alternative pathways are designed to facilitate university access for students from under-represented populations (for example, lowincome, first-generation, Aboriginal, racialized minorities, differently abled, newcomers to Canada, solesupport caregivers, students with incomplete high school education, or some combination of the preceding).
With major strides in access to postsecondary education for all students in recent decades, it is tempting to assume that such progress has erased disparities in college enrollment and completion in the United States. Yet despite having one of the highest college participation rates in the world, large gaps persist in terms of access to and success in higher education in this country, particularly for low-income, minority, and first-generation students.
Given the pressure to remain competitive in the global knowledge economy, it is in our shared national interest to act now to increase the number of students who not only enter college, but more importantly earn their degrees, particularly bachelor’s
degrees. Due to the changing demographics of the United States, we must focus our efforts on improving postsecondary access and success among those populations who have previously been underrepresented in higher education, namely low-income and minority students, many of whom will be the first in their families to go to college.
Postsecondary education has reached a critical impasse. Structurally speaking, the Canadian system does not look much different than it did 50 years ago. But the system’s dynamics have changed considerably: reduced government funding and the tough economic climate make efficient financial models a necessity for healthy institutions; student debt loads are increasing; underemployment is a reality for many undergraduate degree-holders; and the student body is increasingly diverse, with
growing numbers of international students, students from historically underrepresented groups, mature students returning to PSE to improve career prospects, and students having to work at least part-time to manage the cost of education. To ensure that our system is accountable, accessible and of the highest quality, we need to define and assess educational outcomes at both the institutional and student levels.
Abstract
We exploit the Youth in Transition Survey, Cohort A, to investigate access and barriers to postsecondary education (PSE). We first look at how access to PSE by age 21 is related to family characteristics, including family income and parental education. We find that the effects of the latter significantly dominate those of the former. Among the 25% of all youths who do not access PSE, 23% of this group state that they had no PSE aspirations and 43% report no barriers. Only 22% of the 25% who do not access PSE (or 5.5% of all youths in our sample) claim that “finances” constitute a barrier. Further analysis suggests that
affordability per se is an issue in only a minority of those cases where finances are cited, suggesting that the real problem for the majority of those reporting financial barriers may be that they do not perceive PSE to be of sufficient value to
be worth pursuing: “it costs too much” may mean “it is not worth it” rather than “I cannot afford to go.” Our general conclusion is that cultural factors are the principal determinants of PSE participation. Policy implications are discussed.
Résumé
Nous avons scruté les données de l’Enquête auprès de jeunes en transition (cohorte A) afin de comprendre les facteurs qui mènent aux études postsecondaires et ceux qui y font obstacle. Pour ce faire, nous avons d’abord
analysécomment l’accès aux études à l’âge de 21 ans était lié aux caractéristiquesfamiliales, comme le revenu familial et le niveau de scolarité des parents. Nous avons alors constaté que les effets de cette dernière caractéristique l’emportaient sur le revenu familial. En outre, parmi le quart de tous les jeunes qui n’ont pas eu accès à des études postsecondaires, 23 % ont indiqué
An annual report is an opportunity to reflect on what was accomplished in the past year and witness the transformation
taking place. The Canada Foundation for Innovation has the privilege of a front-row seat on the ever-advancing research
landscape in Canada. Each year, our funded institutions open new world-class research facilities, hundreds of talented researchers receive new infrastructure support and Canadian research labs continue to produce significant
breakthroughs and tangible outcomes that benefit Canadians.
And 2013-14 was no exception. Our celebrated moments include the June 2013 ribbon cutting for Dalhousie
University’s Ocean Sciences Building, a 7,000-squaremetre complex that brings several of the institution’s worldleading
ocean experts together in a collaborative space.
OUSA’s 2014 Budget Submission is focused on how the government can leverage post-secondary education to help achieve its vision of creating a fairer society. Despite the current discourse questioning the value of post-secondary education, the evidence demonstrates that attaining a post-secondary credential can significantly change a recipient’s social, economic, and health outcomes for the better.
However, to be able to achieve these ends, we must ensure that access to post-secondary is fair, that students have equal opportunities for success upon graduation, and that while students are in postsecondary, their educational experience is equivalent to their increasing investment.
• Fewer than one in five PhD graduates are employed as full-time university professors. The majority of PhDs are employed outside academia in a wide range of rewarding careers—such as in industry, government, and not-for- profit organizations.
• Many PhD graduates face challenging initial transitions to careers outside academia due to underdeveloped professional skills and networks, difficulty articulating the value of the skills gained through PhD studies to non-academic employers, and limited employer awareness or misperceptions about the potential value of PhD hires.
There is increasing interest, if not demand, from universities and students for faculty to teach using online technologies. However, many faculty members are reluctant to teach online. In this paper, we examine data collected from a broad range of faculty (part-time, tenure track, new and more experienced, in education,business, and liberal arts) to explore the relationship between faculty attitudes, experiences, self-perceived preparedness, and concerns about teaching online courses. In particular, we examine whether faculty who have taught online courses, feel more prepared and more motivated to teach online and have more positive attitudes about online teaching than those who have not taught online. Our findings indicate that while there are a number of concerns about teaching online among the faculty we surveyed, concerns about students are among the most important. We end with some policy and procedural implications for why faculty may or may not usenew technologies to teach.
The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback on the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities’ summer roundtable discussion guide. The issues and proposed changes outlined in the guide would have a significant impact on university faculty and will require the support of the 17,000 faculty OCUFA represents if they are to be successful.
Almost 40 per cent of the most highly rated private career colleges in Ontario appear to be failing to prepare students for the labour market, with a third of graduates at 58 out of 159 campuses unable to find any work six months after graduation.
The numbers, released by the provincial government this spring and analyzed by The Globe and Mail, raise renewed questions about whether public money should be used to help students attend the private institutions. Data were made public only for the schools the province has approved as eligible for financial aid.
The Strategic Mandate Agreement (SMA) exercise was intended to address at least three desired
outcomes:
1. To promote the government’s stated goal1 of increasing the differentiation of the Ontario postsecondary system by asking each Ontario postsecondary institution to articulate an institutional mandate statement identifying its distinctive strengths or aspirations and to identify key objectives aligned with that aspiration.
2. To advance and inform the discussion about how the Ontario system could increase its productivity to deliver a quality education to more students within the financial constraints expected in the public sector.
3. To elicit the best thinking from institutions about innovations and reforms that would support higher quality learning and, in its most ambitious form, transform Ontario’s public postsecondary system.
To assist with the evaluation of the SMAs, the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) “…instructed the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) to establish a peer review panel to evaluate…mandate submissions … for their ability to achieve significant improvements in productivity, quality and affordability through both innovation and differentiation.” The members of the Expert Panel are listed in Appendix 1.